DENVER—A crew working on a parking garage project about a mile and half from the State Capitol uncovered remains from one of Denver’s first cemeteries.
Denver’s chief deputy coroner Michelle Weiss-Samaras said Friday the remains discovered just below the surface at Denver Botanic Gardens will be removed and given to a mortuary for reburial.
Founded in 1858 as Mount Prospect Cemetery, thousands were buried in the area where Denver’s Cheesman Park, Congress Park, the Denver Botanic Gardens and nearby neighborhoods now sit.
About 9,000 remains were removed around 1950, but University of Denver archaeology professor Larry Conyers said thousands of caskets remain. He uses the area to train students in the use of ground-penetrating radar to discover their location.
“I use it as a test case. I know where they are, and I see if they can find them,” said the archaeologist, has used the radar to a lost Christian church in Tunisia, Roman temples in Jordan, and a buried Mayan village in El Salvador.
The construction crew spotted what looked like splintered wood and possible human remains around noon, bring work to a halt. The coroner’s office was contacted.
KDVR-TV footage showed workers unearthing what appeared to be human thigh bones and dirt-caked coffin handles.
Excavation for a new three-story parking structure began about three weeks ago, gardens spokesman Will Jones said. Knowing the possibility of human remains being uncovered, Jones said they contacted the coroner’s office beforehand to coordinate efforts in case they found graves.
Officials from the coroner’s office spent about four hours at the site Friday and will return on Saturday.
Conyers said he knows where caskets containing adult and children remains are located but he’s not telling anyone.
“We let them lie in peace,” said the archaeologist.
