Ghosts & Legends of Colorado’s Front Range

Mann.

INTRODUCTION

Colorado is a wonderful state, filled with all sorts of intriguing events. Unusual weather, strange creatures, lost treasure and haunting spirits—you can find it all in the Centennial State, mixed up with generous dollops of history, technology (computer companies love it here) and education (universities and schools ditto), not to mention incredible views. Many of the state’s residents, myself included, live near the backbone (actually the Rocky Mountains and its foothills) that divides Colorado almost down the middle, better known as the Front Range.

Wikipedia defines this eighteen-county area of Colorado (Wyoming, too) as an oblong region of urban population located along the eastern face of the Southern Rocky Mountains. It is important to mention at this point that two Front Ranges exist: the mountain range (one of the sub-ranges to the Rockies) and the Front Range Urban Corridor, which this book focuses on. The name comes from one of the many smaller mountain chains that snuggle against the Rockies, including Rampart Range, the Never Summers, Indian Peaks and others. Towns, villages and metropolitan centers are many along this section of flatlands, including Cheyenne and Laramie to the north, then moving south to Fort Collins, Greeley, Longmont/Louisville, Boulder, Denver/Aurora/Lakewood (the largest metropolitan area in the state), Littleton/Centennial/Highlands Ranch, Parker, Franktown, Sedalia, Castle Rock, Palmer Lake/Monument, Colorado Springs (second-largest) and, finally, Pueblo. And a whole lot of additional towns in between, including those stretching out on the plains.

Vintage wire service press photo: ‘Trail Ride’ looks out at the 24-carat gold dome of the Colorado State Capitol. Norman Matheny photo, author’s collection.

In spite of few passes leading into the mountains, it’s fairly easy to get around—if you don’t count Denver’s traffic. You’ve got several highways to choose from, including Interstate 70 and of course I-25, which runs the length of the state. (I-80 begins around the Wyoming state line, right where I-25 leaves off.) But more importantly, railroads were able to build north and south through the state, eventually spreading in other directions as well. The Union Pacific Railroad operates two rail lines: one, the Overland Route, which parallels much of I-70 through the mountain, and the other, a former section of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad that follows the Colorado River and runs through the 6½-mile-long Moffat Tunnel. Although the latter is usually a freight line, Amtrak’s passenger train the California Zephyr uses it daily as well.

Add to those hundreds of miles of highway and rail lines Colorado’s airports—several scattered all over the state, with Denver International Airport (DIA) the sixth-busiest in the United States, with more than fiftyeight million passengers traipsing through each year. Yet much of Colorado was considered uninhabitable desert until late in the nineteenth century; it didn’t even become a state until 1876, the thirty-eighth to do so. Much of that new status was due to the discovery of gold and silver by forty-niners trickling back from California’s gold diggings, looking for new opportunities to mine…and exploit. When gold was discovered in the Franktown area (see that chapter for more), miners and travelers began settling down, in spite of little water, unstable weather and Indian attacks. They and their animals needed supplies; back east, the country had endured several financial panics, as well as the hazards and divided loyalties of the Civil War era. What better time to come west as a homesteader, rancher…or someone who wanted to ditch their name and/or family and make a clean start?

It wasn’t just precious minerals that saved Colorado and other parts of the West; it was the railroad. The transcontinental line was finished when a golden spike was pounded into the rail on May 10, 1879, in Promontory, Utah—a project that started in 1862 and brought thousands of people west to work and eventually settle here.

The Union Pacific Railroad did not route its tracks through Colorado, however. That was reserved for Cheyenne, Wyoming. Coloradoans realized that a connection to that line was critical if the state was to grow. Although Golden’s residents were first to start the ball with the Colorado Central and Pacific Railway in 1865, it wasn’t until 1869 that the Denver Pacific Railway, sponsored by Denver citizens, began to actually lay track toward Cheyenne. It completed the Denver spur on June 26, 1870.

The railroad’s advent meant that slow-moving pack trains, especially those using the Trapper’s Trail from Santa Fe or the Cherokee Trail east of Denver, were no longer necessary for getting supplies. The railroad would bring them in—passengers and settlers, too—much more efficiently. Suddenly, a trip that, according to History.com, entailed more than $1,100 in 1800s dollars cost no more than $150. Since the connection, seventeen freight and two passenger carriers have been actively operating in the Rocky Mountain region. And that’s not counting the dozens of defunct railroads, plus the ten historic railroads, including Pike’s Peak’s cog railway, that have been ferrying tourists around for decades.

Understanding Colorado’s hardscrabble past—including its military outposts, farmers, ranchers, miners, trappers and Indian inhabitants, honorable and dishonorable alike—will give you a better idea of its vibrant presence, including the hardships and disasters endured by its citizens, some of whom still have family members living and working here today. But looking at this strange mix of triumph and failure will also point you to the future—like Colorado’s penchant for a boom-and-bust economy.

Hauntings, odd events and lost treasure—even Bigfoot—are a reminder that what’s immediately visible isn’t always everything that’s out there. What you see may be only part of what you get.

And that’s what this book is all about.

HOW THIS BOOK WORKS

Colorado’s Front Range contains not only millions of people but also hundreds of cities, towns and spit-in-the-road hamlets on its many roads and trails. Ghost towns, too. Unfortunately, there is no way I could fit everything into a book this size of all the unusual stories, people and places out there. Also, some of the Front Range cities already have wonderful books by my fellow authors at Arcadia Publishing and The History Press. You will find them scattered through the chapters whose areas they cover, as well as in the bibliography.

Therefore, I’ve taken the arbitrary step of meandering down the Front Range, starting (mostly) at Fort Collins and finishing at Pueblo. (Sorry, Wyoming friends. The buck—or buffalo—stops at the state line. However, you’ll enjoy Haunted Cheyenne and Haunted Warren Air Force Base, both written by Jill Pope for Arcadia.) Although I’m including some stories about major population areas that have been written about before, particularly Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs, I’ve made a special effort to choose places, people and events that haven’t been mentioned much—if at all—before in popular writing. Instead, I’ll be focusing on smaller but no less populous places like Castle Rock and Parker, whose stories have not been publicized as much. Also included are more rural towns like Sedalia, Palmer Lake and Fort Lupton—even a few farther out on the eastern plains, like Franktown and Kiowa. They deserve more recognition than they often get.

This metal buffalo, high on a hill above I-25, is a familiar sight to those crossing the Colorado-Wyoming border. David Brick photo.

You will notice the use of recurring themes, including hanging trees (amazing how many are out there, until you understand why); saloons and other places of entertainment; fires, floods and other natural disasters; schools and other educational institutions; and, of course, the occupations that put Colorado on the road to statehood: mining, ranching, farming and homesteading, as well as the storekeepers who sold to and bought from them. Politics must also rear its ugly head. Look for special mentions of these in the Highlights and Lowlights that end each chapter.

The chapter subjects will move from north to south along the Front Range, following the line that the mountains have established, with occasional darts into the foothills or out onto the plains. With one exception, each chapter will focus on a specific area—as much as I could do so, that is, without omitting some of the best things. Unless they agreed to its use, most modern witnesses’ names have been changed or adapted, though historical names are accurate. Conversations, particularly the historical ones, are based on actual events but probably don’t mirror the originals word for word. (Obviously.) These are actual places, people, landmarks and events—and the legends are based on facts. Sometimes not a lot of them…but facts, nonetheless.

On a personal note, while researching this book, I’ve been asked if I believe in ghosts. The answer: yes. As a person of faith, experiencing all sorts of unusual coincidences and events, I am convinced that our world actually has several layers of dimensions. Most of the time, we live in what we could consider a normal environment. However, sometimes a past event, particularly a traumatic or deeply emotional one, rips through the fragile barrier and repeats itself. Many ghostly excursions seem to be of this type. (Helen Keller certainly believed it when she said, Death is just moving from one room to another.) Or the ghost is a playful or active spirit, moving items around, turning lights on and off, calling out employees’ names or appearing just in time to scare the bejeebers out of some poor soul. This happens a lot, too, particularly in attics, basements and bathrooms.

The third category contains the really frightening spirits. They’re angry, and they mean business. Usually they want us human inhabitants to leave and will go to great lengths to encourage us to do so. Sometimes, I believe, they truly are demons. Fortunately, these are few and mostly seem to focus on specific areas, traumatic events or individuals. If you are one of those persons they’re focusing on, you’re in big trouble.

Have I ever seen a ghost?

Well, yes…and no.

I kept seeing a line of people out of the corner of my eye while digging well-seasoned manure one summer afternoon in my parents’ barn—the same barn built by my ancestors while homesteading in Michigan in the 1840s. (I was a young married then, keen on building up the soil in my tiny garden.) They were gone when I turned around. Ancestors, approving of what I was doing? Or maybe not. Who knows.

Husband David and I experienced some oddities at the La Veta Inn’s haunted room in La Veta, Colorado, including a sharp rise from cold to hot air, the unsettling feeling that someone was watching (especially at night, both in our room and in the bar downstairs) and the worst part: an unseen presence going up the steps behind David as he carried up our suitcases. (He said he could actually hear the steps creaking behind him.) The inn, though out of the Front Range’s grasp, has a long reputation of being haunted and has been written about before.

The strangest event, though, happened long after we’d moved from our first house in Castle Rock, not far from Centennial Park. Our two daughters played in the cedar-fenced backyard and walked to school at nearby South Elementary. We had some very happy times there.

But from the start, I was never quite at ease in the basement laundry room, next to the door leading to the garage. We needed clean clothes, so I used it—but I always felt as if someone was peering over my shoulder. (And they weren’t approving, either.) A cold chill was in the air, regardless of the temperature outside. It was a relief to escape into the main room or up the stairs to more congenial parts of the house.

I’d always thought this was just my feelings. Then, years after we’d moved, David mentioned how uneasy the laundry room had made him; he’d avoided it whenever possible. (I thought he just didn’t like to do laundry!) Both daughters, now grown, looked at each other in surprise: We thought we were the only ones uncomfortable in there!

What happened in that laundry room?

We never found out.