dogs were brought in to protect the work site. There are multiple accounts of what happened next, but they all agree on one thing: one of the dogs jumped from a tower window in the building on the first night and died of his injuries within several days. According to other versions of the story, another one was also mortally injured on the second night. The other guard dog was found in the basement in a catatonic state, in which he remained for the rest of his life.
Despite these setbacks, the office space was eventually completed, but the hauntings did not stop, and employees would hear typewriters and other office supplies being used when there was no one around. Many tied this to Thomas Patterson, saying that some scandal or story had not made it into the paper, so a departed Patterson was going to do it himself.
One person, who owned the building in 1998, claims to have seen ghosts and witnessed household items move on their own. One resident of the building in 2004 claims to have seen apparitions of a maid who would go up and down the stairs, with only her upper body and torso visible and her legs seeming to dissipate. There is also a story of the ghost of Katherine Patterson helping a pregnant resident roll over.
Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society (RMPRS) has worked with the current and previous owners of the building, such as Dr. Douglas Ikeler and his wife, Melodee. Bryan Bonner of RMPRS says that he heard the story of the pregnant woman firsthand from Melodee, who lived in the mansion with her husband for 10 years. Bonner added that, including the owners he has personally worked with, anyone who has been in contact with the mansion for long periods of time seems to start to “lose it.” He used Tulleen Sudan as a prime example.
Depending on which version of the story you believe, several dogs that were meant to act as guards when the Croke-Patterson Mansion was being renovated jumped from this tower window. No one knows what caused the dogs to jump, but many suspect that it was one of the spirits who allegedly resides in the building.
RMPRS also did a radio show out of the mansion during one of the periods it was vacant. Its members decided they were going to stay the night there for the show. One of the sound engineers stayed in the basement. According to Bonner, he came back upstairs immediately, saying there was a man standing in the corner. They searched the mansion but could not find a man. Bonner added, however, that it was the same corner of the basement where the catatonic dog was found, and it was the same corner that the Ikelers’ daughters had previously claimed to have seen a man standing by their toys.
The house remained vacant for a while before its most current owner, Brian Higgins, and his business partner at the time, Travis McAfoos, purchased the building in hopes of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. According to Bonner, Higgins at first planned to completely renovate the building to its original historic state, but changed his mind entirely after staying in the mansion. Higgins decided to film the renovations on the building, documenting his own “hauntings” and mishaps that occurred while the work was in progress. Higgins’ documentary, which he directed, edited, and titled The Castle Project, begs the question as to whether he believes in the haunts that reside in his bed-and-breakfast. Higgins, who stayed in the house for several days during the renovation, filmed a bat flying around the building at night and caught footage of an apparition of a maid in the large mirror on the main floor of the house. He also recorded audio of disembodied voices. Contractors working on the renovation also reported seeing shadows and apparitions, as well as feeling cold spots, smelling putrid odors, and hearing noises such as music, babies crying, and other voices. A fire, which Higgins claims started the same night as the Waldo Canyon fires near Colorado Springs at that time, caused several setbacks in renovation.
After an 18-month renovation, the mansion was reopened in August 2012 as the Patterson Bed and Breakfast. Since then, it has landed on CBS’s top 10 bed-and-breakfasts list, in July 2014. With nine themed rooms and accommodations such as large flat-screen TVs, Higgins has worked hard to erase the stigma surrounding the Croke-Patterson Mansion. He renovated it for the modern world but kept some of the historical Victorian-era design, such as the mansion’s famed stained-glass windows. For the cost of spending a night there, paranormal enthusiasts can decide for themselves whether the mansion is still haunted.
CHAPTER 2
Cheesman Park and the Denver Botanic Gardens
DENVER
The Denver Botanic Gardens are now on top of where the Catholic section of Denver’s cemetery used to be. Supposedly one of the classrooms in the atrium building (pictured) is haunted.
THE FIELDS OF GREEN GRASS and looping sidewalks between Eighth and 13th Avenues that make up Cheesman Park look like any other city recreational area. There are trees, joggers, and groups playing volleyball or Ultimate Frisbee. It is also, however, the former location of a graveyard and body dump site.
The land on which Cheesman Park currently resides was used by the Arapahoe tribe that inhabited parts of Colorado before it became a territory. In 1858, General William Larimer founded the city of Denver, setting aside 160 acres for a cemetery. Because the land was originally sacred burial grounds for the Arapahoe tribe, Denver had to follow very specific rules when using the land as a cemetery. American Indians were buried there at the typical 6 feet underground and, because new burials were not allowed to disturb the previous ones, they were placed only 3 feet under. This land would later be split among Cheesman Park, Congress Park, and the Denver Botanic Gardens. Larimer designated a corner of the cemetery for Denver’s up-and-coming wealthy upper class, while the opposite corner was for criminals and the poor. The middle class was set in the middle.
The first recorded burial in the newly named Mount Prospect Cemetery was a man who died from a lung infection. The second burial was much more interesting. John Stoefel, having been tried and convicted by the people’s court for the murder of his brother-in-law, was hanged from a tree and buried in the cemetery. Despite being a new territory with only a few residents, nearly 1,000 people came to witness Stoefel’s hanging, which is listed as the first official execution in Colorado. He was buried in April of 1859 in the same grave as his victim, Thomas Beincroff.
More and more, the poor section of the cemetery was filled with outlaws and criminals. When professional gambler Jack O’Neal was shot outside a saloon in Denver, he was buried in Mount Prospect in March 1860, and the Rocky Mountain News printed a story in which it gave the cemetery the nickname “Jack O’Neal’s Ranch.”
Mount Prospect never became the beautiful garden cemetery Larimer had envisioned. Denver’s wealthy buried their dead in other locations, leaving the area to the diseased, the outlaws, and the poor. After Larimer left Denver in the late 1860s, the cemetery was taken over by aspiring undertaker John Walley. Walley was a cabinetmaker, which may explain why the land and graves quickly went into disrepair under his watch. Although he supervised many of the burials, he allegedly made poor caskets with as little lumber as possible. Gravestones began to topple, and many were vandalized. Cattle reportedly grazed the grass of the cemetery and homesteaders lived off of its land.
Religious groups began sectioning off certain parts of the cemetery for their dead. Catholics purchased 40 acres of land from Walley in August of 1865, located by modern-day Eighth to 11th Avenues on one end and from High to Race Streets on the other, and, after christening the property, named it Mount Calvary. East of this cemetery from York to Josephine Streets and Ninth to 11th Avenues was the Hebrew Cemetery, which was fenced off, on land purchased from Walley by Jews in August 1866. This same year, reports say, a total of 626 people were buried in Mount Prospect, Mount Calvary, and the Hebrew Cemetery.
But many argued
