The tombs bear names that still haunt Denver’s history, unmoved by neglect in this out-of-the-way graveyard on the city’s northeast border.

A visit to the 149-year-old Riverside Cemetery shows headstones and mausoleums whose specters loom large — namesakes of mountains and boulevards and opera houses, but also political villains and wealthy mining families with tragic pasts. They stopped moving long ago, unlike the ribbon of South Platte River that gave the cemetery its name.

Riverside’s limestone, marble and bronze monuments are shockingly naked in its largely treeless, 77-acre expanse. And perhaps that’s appropriate, as contemporary history continues to see some of them as outright monsters. Others are culturally diverse pioneers who paved the way for Denver’s progressive present — and who have been criminally forgotten by most.

I visit all of them, but it’s not just morbid tourism. I commune with my relatives’ gravesites wherever they may be, and have found peace there. Instead of grim and solemn, I feel connected and calmed. And when the permanent residents have a wild history like Riverside’s? I’m there for sure.

The estimated 67,000 graves and crypts at Riverside include Clara Brown, Augusta Tabor, Miguel Otero, Barney and Julia Ford, Captain Silas Soule and Gov. John Evans, “as well as 1,200 Civil War veterans and three Medal of Honor recipients,” according to the Fairmount Heritage Foundation, which manages a cemetery that insanely lost its water rights decades ago.

Now it’s a unique historical wasteland, despite the volunteer efforts to tend to it. The view is lovely if you enjoy rusting train tracks and light-rail blare and “Blade Runner”-esque smokestacks. The important — at times horrific — history feels of apiece. Gov. Evans, for example, presided over the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 that killed hundreds of Indigenous people, mostly women, children and the elderly.

But there are also suffragettes and railroad-builders and heroes like Park Hee Byung, whose early 20th-century efforts to organize Korean culture in Colorado unceremoniously netted him an unmarked grave, . (That was fixed in 2007, thankfully.)

Riverside ultimately includes not just luminaries but also “the unknown and unwanted, and all those in between,” as . There’s the Greek Orthodox section (St. Michael’s Plot), and the tidy rows of Civil War graves, where my mother-in-law and my family have placed miniature American flags on past Memorial Days (her idea, and a good one).

Riverside has . But it’s outlasted enough boom-and-bust to take on its own motley character. And, yes: It’s straight-up spooky. Years later, my son still hasn’t forgiven me for telling him I spied a moving silhouette inside an echoing mausoleum.

“Oh my God, what’s that in there?” I said as I pointed, and his eyes followed.

“Not funny, Dad!” But as my son learned, and as I continue to appreciate, it’s nicer to visit than live there.

Riverside Cemetery is located at 5201 Brighton Blvd. in Denver and open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Visit for information about walking tours, free educational programs and efforts to create an environmentally sustainable landscape there.

Just a day earlier, protesters motivated by the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd had spray-painted and then toppled a 111-year-old sculpture of a Civil War soldier in front of the Colorado state capitol on June 25, 2020. So Gray placed plywood boards around the bronze Columbus statue to keep demonstrators from vandalizing it.

The boards had been painted with original works by Black artists as part of Gray’s Black Love Mural Festival and he hoped protesters would think twice if they had to smash through a wall of colorful, progressive art before going after the Columbus statue, something they saw as a symbol of oppression.

“I wanted to make sure Black people weren’t getting blamed for (vandalism),” said Gray, an art dealer, curator and educator whose festival debuted in between the near-nightly protests of June 2020. Black artists quickly filled Civic Center with original memorials and pieces celebrating nonviolence and racial justice. “We wanted to express ourselves in a peaceful way.”

But he knew that the boards weren’t meant to be a permanent solution or an impenetrable wall, and they didn’t end up keeping protesters at bay. On June 26, 2020, the day after the Civil War statue fell, the Columbus statue was spray-painted and pulled to the ground.

At least the demonstrators had gently placed his plywood murals to the side first. “When people are motivated, there’s not much you can do,” Gray said.

That same day, city officials voluntarily removed a statue of frontiersman Kit Carson, which had sat at Broadway and Colfax Avenue’s Pioneer Monument for more than a century, before protesters could do it themselves. That statue, along with Columbus, are now at undisclosed locations to prevent further destruction. The Civil War soldier is at History Colorado Center.

Denver is one of more than 200 U.S. cities where historical monuments were removed — either by protesters or city officials — from public spaces in 2020, having come to symbolize slavery, racism and oppression to many. But more than three years later, public officials in Colorado are still trying to decide what to do with the most controversial items in their art collections.

The process may get a shove from the nonprofit Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which awarded $25 million in grants to nine U.S. cities, including Denver, this summer aimed at funding works that “more completely and accurately represent the multiplicity and complexity of American stories.”

In Denver’s case, the money will be used to audit the city’s collection of monuments, hold community meetings and gather feedback, and pay for new monument construction.

That’s been an ongoing process for city officials, since they have yet to specifically tap their $2.3 million from Mellon, said Tariana Navas-Nieves, cultural affairs director for Denver Arts & Venues.

“Most of the (nationwide) focus has been on Confederate statues, and that’s not the case in Denver,” she said. “We’re in the heart of the American West, so our monuments are entangled with our identity and this mythologized version of Western history.

“In reality, that history includes not just European settlers and colonialism, but Indigenous and Latino people, the City Beautiful movement and disability-rights activists,” she added.

Some of the Denver money is reserved for , the original disability-rights activists who helped kick off the national movement resulting in the Americans with Disabilities Act. But what shape the changes take will be unique to every city, Navas-Nieves said, as no one has yet figured out a surefire approach to renaming and replacing controversial monuments.

“We have to ask who we want our heroes to be,” she explained. “Our narratives have only been told through the voices of those in power. So we want to do it right, not fast.”

The fate of the toppled

Denver’s Columbus statue itself was a piece of art, created by Denver artist William F. Joseph and installed in 1970, according to historical documents. It was in honor of Colorado as the first state to recognize Columbus Day as a holiday in 1907, Denver Arts & Venues said. The Civil War cavalry soldier was by John Dare Howland, while Kit Carson was designed by Frederick MacMonnies.

But replacing art like this is “a historically common thing,” as social mores and politics shift, said Steven Weitzman, a veteran sculptor who got his start in Boulder in the 1970s. “People have been doing it since time immemorial … It’s not shocking to me nor do I take objection to removing statues. But do I think that all the statues not in public favor should be destroyed? Not necessarily. … What we can do is use it as a learning opportunity.”

Weitzman designed that blankets the great hall at History Colorado Center, among many other statewide landmarks, and has been commissioned to create pieces for the National Zoo, the United Nations headquarters and other national institutions.

He’s currently creating a statue to replace a Robert E. Lee monument at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. — his second in the building, following a statue of Frederick Douglass. This one will be of Barbara Rose Johns, the 16-year-old Black student who led her classmates in a strike against segregated schools in Virginia in 1951.

“It boils down to: what is art in the first place?” Weitzman said. “It’s a form of communication. That conversation the artist had with themselves, and that conversation the artists hope you have when you see it.”

In Colorado, legislators voted to replace the Civil War soldier with a sculpture of an Indigenous woman mourning the atrocities of the 159-year-old Sand Creek Massacre. It was to be created by artist Harvey Pratt, but Pratt withdrew his design in March 2022, citing creative differences with the tribes leading the replacement effort, . A replacement has not yet been chosen, the Capitol Building Advisory Committee said.

Meanwhile, the Union soldier statue has been repurposed as a conversation-starter, a few blocks from where it once stood, at the History Colorado Center. Titled “On Guard,” it still sports its graffiti, but also includes commentary and context, said museum spokesman Luke Perkins.

As for Kit Carson, replacing that process will take longer, Navas-Nieves said, due to the fact that it was of a larger monument in Civic Center park and, in her opinion, a more complicated history. She said a comprehensive assessment and audit will begin this year.

But city officials declined to say on the record where the Kit Carson and Columbus monuments are being held for fear of more vandalism. “The pieces are being temporarily stored on private property owned by one of the artist’s family members,” Navas-Nieves said.

“There are a lot of sensitivities around the sculptures and we’re just trying to protect them and the location where they’re stored,” added public art program manager Michael Chavez.

Looking forward, and up

Despite the fact that they’ve not yet decided how to use Mellon grant money, state and city officials have long known which monuments are most vulnerable. On June 25, 2020, the Colorado Information Analysis Center sent out a bulletin to law enforcement agencies identifying eight statues that could be targets, according to a copy obtained by The Denver Post.

The document, titled “Colorado’s Statues of Interest,” included the Columbus memorial along with a Confederate statue that sits in the Riverside Cemetery in Commerce City, Colorado’s oldest operating cemetery. The list also identified Confederate monuments in Pitkin and Fremont counties, a Civil War cannon in El Paso County, and two Civil War memorials and a Columbus statue in Pueblo County.

A renaming commission created after the protests also began meeting in June 2020 to evaluate 482 facilities and 400 pieces in the city’s public art collection, Navas-Nieves said. The renaming commission unites representatives from the African American, Latino, LGBTQ and American Indian communities in order to change the way the city’s history is told. Those are the same stakeholders involved in replacing statues at Civic Center, the state capitol and other sites around the metro area.

“When I was in elementary school it was the start of bussing students to other schools, so there were Black kids in my class, Latino kids, Latino teachers,” sculptor Weitzman said. “My upbringing was culturally diverse, so that����ap how I see the world. When I’m working on sculptures are in any art form, that’s very present in my mind.”

Whether or not the public art landscape reflects current social and political sentiments, there are existing sites worth elevating, preservationists say. Five Points’ Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, as well as History Colorado, received $50,000 from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund in 2021 for preservation. Understanding Black history can help bring broader perspectives to discussions about racial justice and police violence, Gray said.

“I didn’t feel safe coming down to (protest at) Civic Center, and my voice would have been one in a sea of them,” he said. “But public art is accessible to anyone, and I wanted to make myself heard that way. It’s not in a museum or locked behind a paywall. It’s not just for rich people. It’s a reaction, and it’s there to generate reactions.”

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Volunteers at the Denver Police Museum, retired police officers and government officials joined together on Saturday morning to unveil the headstone of Steam, who nearly a century ago became the first African-American Denver police officer to die in the line of duty.

Steam served as a police officer in Denver in the Five Points neighborhood for 11 years. He was shot to death on February 1921 by a man named Keil O’Neil, who accused Steam of unfairly shutting down a party the week before. At the time of his death, the city paid for Steams funeral, but it recently came to the attention of the Denver Police Museum that his grave lacked a marker.

“Today’s ceremony will correct that oversight,” Michael Hesse, president of the Denver Police Museum said.

“You kind of wonder that,” he said, when asked why Steam’s grave had been left unmarked. “We don’t know, but we had the opportunity to bring him back to life today.”

Steam started working in the city as a night watchman and a janitor at the Denver City and County building but was then hired to patrol the predominately black areas of Denver. He was killed at 2128 Arapahoe St. on Feb. 18, 1921 at 8:15 p.m.

The graveside ceremony opened with a flag bearer ceremony followed by a series of speeches by Mayor Michael Hancock and Police Chief Robert White, among others.

“As our nation recognizes the many leaders and heroes for black history month, the Denver Police Museum is honored to have this opportunity to recognize and honor the sacrifices of Willie O. Steam,” Hesse said.

“Steam had a reputation of strong will. He would go into very difficult and very dangerous situations by himself. He would march into difficult situations many times without backup.”

White reminded the audience that in addition to showing great signs of bravery during his service as a police officer, Steam was also a veteran of World War I and had survived a gunshot wound, from which he fully recovered, seven years prior to his death.

Steam’s showed his courage by joining the Denver police force during a time of prevailing racial prejudice. For Steam to have joined the Denver police at this time, shows a man of character and fearlessness, Hancock noted.

“In the 1920s, for an African American to become a Denver police officer deserves recognition,” Stephanie O’Malley, former Denver public safety director, said after the ceremony.

“To honor him today and say we haven’t forgotten him is just something that is phenomenal. We can’t forget the people that give.”

The ceremony concluded with a prayer, followed by a reception with chocolate cake, dozens of cookies and warm coffee.

“Today is the release of the movie ‘Black Panther’ and we want to share with our community that we also have superheroes of all races,” Hesse said. “We may not have superpowers but we have the bravery, tenacity and love for our community that have helped make our community what it is today,”

Those people might now want to invest in snow tires.

The train isn’t coming early next year. It may not even come early the year after that. 

The Regional Transportation District is looking at an estimated 18-month construction delay for the , officials say. The first phase of the project, including six of eight planned stations, was originally scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2018. The delay puts the opening in late 2019, though RTD officials will not commit to that time frame and have vowed to make up the time as best they can.

“We’re not close enough to be able to provide a project timeline or completion date at this point,” RTD spokesman Nate Currey said, “but we are working diligently because we know people up north are super anxious to see this open.”

The N-Line delay is the latest setback for RTD as it seeks to finish the funded portions of its FasTracks rail system. to the airport has been plagued by persistent software issues at its crossings that have required millions of dollars in extra staff time as federally mandated flaggers work road crossings along the route.

The opening of the G-line to Wheat Ridge, originally set for last fall, has been delayed by similar issues, although . The agency  because of low ridership. In a bit of good news, RTD recently announced crossing attendants on the B-Line to Westminster’s single road crossing will soon be .

The delay up north stems from a variety of complications in designing and building the 12.5 miles of track that will eventually carry electric, heavy-rail trains from Denver’s Union Station north to East 124th and Eastlake avenues in Thornton. RTD’s design-build contractor on the project is Regional Rail Partners.

The project is snagged over how it will impact the historic Riverside Cemetery at 5201 Brighton Blvd. RTD has proposed closing the cemetery’s existing entrance on Brighton and placing a new entrance off of Race Court.

A Colorado Public Utilities Commission administrative judge ruled this summer that would promote public safety at a crossing that would see more than 80 trains a day. Now, RTD is working with the Army Corps of Engineers on ways it can minimize or avoid impacts on the cemetery in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act.

Cemetery officials say they want to keep the entrance as it is.

Meanwhile, RTD is building a nearly 2-mile-long bridge to carry the single-track line over York Street, existing rail road tracks and Interstate 270 in Commerce City. The so-called also passes over a portion of the Suncor oil refinery.

But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has deemed the refinery as important strategically, RTD’s Currey said, and mandated the agency add blinders on portions of the bridge so passengers can’t see down into the facility.

“It’s really long, it’s really high and it goes through some sensitive areas,” Currey said of the complicated bridge.

While RTD works to navigate the situation, north-metro leaders are working to remain patient.

Thornton Mayor Heidi Williams said her city has sped up work on public improvements and roadway projects to make way for the incoming train.

Financial problems constrained the scope of the FasTracks plan after the Great Recession — the Boulder line won’t be funded until at least 2040 — so RTD scaled back the N-Line, planning to end it at the National Western Complex in Denver. RTD received an unsolicited proposal in 2013 that convinced the agency that it could build north to 124th Avenue, although two further stops remain unfunded.

Williams said she is grateful that train service is coming to Thornton. Still, a delay with no end in sight is hard to swallow.

“We’d love to hear they’ve found a miracle, but we’re not going to count on that,” Williams said. “Hopefully, it’s still 2019. They haven’t told us.”

Commerce City Mayor Sean Ford said he is frustrated by the delay. His city will host a station at East 72nd Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. He noted that the economy is booming now and incoming mass transit infrastructure has the ability to attract major development. The prospects of such development lessen, though, when municipalities can’t give developers and employers clear answers on when that infrastructure might be put to use. He said it would help if RTD could provide a date certain when service will begin.

“I absolutely in no way want to bad-mouth RTD,” Ford said. “I want to encourage them … to find meaningful solutions and have some hard-set dates to be able to convey to our public. We can use that to benefit from economic development opportunities and also to be transparent and have a clear finish line for the people who want to do business here.”

I am very concerned with the recent article about RTD’s decision to run the North Metro Rail Line alongside Riverside Cemetery, which would result in relocating its only entrance. At what point will Denver learn not to destroy the few remainders of our past?

In the 1960s, Denver “modernized” our Capitol Hill areas, resulting in the loss and beauty of the majority of the city’s late-1800s and turn-of-the-century mansions. Now, again, we want to modernize, but this time we add insult to our founding pioneers by further jeopardizing the final resting place of many. For shame, Denver!

As a fourth-generation Colorado native, third-generation Denverite, and member of the Territorial Daughters of Colorado, I am appalled by this plan and its ramifications. Wake up! Treasure and protect our history — it can’t be replaced.

���ʲ�������DZ������Բ�,��Centennial

Riverside Cemetery is sacred ground. Closing the main entrance may be the last nail in the coffin for what once was a quiet place. It is surrounded by junkyards, refineries, sewage treatment and now increasing train traffic. RTD could’ve extended the overpass so people can honor loved ones and those who established Denver and Colorado. Many of them were transferred there from what is now Cheesman Park. What will keep them from being moved again? As Denver continues to grow, we need to do better caring for one another, including those who’ve passed on. We all will someday.

Stan Current, Denver

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Now, that mystery might also involve finding the cemetery’s entrance, as the construction of a new Regional Transportation District commuter rail threatens to displace Riverside’s only point of entry.

The new line will run right past Riverside’s front door on Brighton Boulevard, and RTD is proposing to close the cemetery’s entrance and build a new one off a side street. But Riverside officials worry that a new, less obvious entrance will confuse people and discourage visitors.

“It����ap certainly going to be a lot more difficult to gain access to Riverside,” said Michael Long, director of business development for Fairmount Cemetery, which owns Riverside. “It might deter people from even coming to the cemetery at all.”

Opened on July 1, 1876, Riverside Cemetery is older than the state of Colorado. From outside, the Wide fields of yellow weeds, wildflowers and the occasional tree sprawl across the 77-acre property, fenced in as if to protect it from the warehouses and thoroughfares just beyond its gates. Once past the entrance — an unassuming opening in a long fence marked by a sign — a sea of headstones comes into view, some ornate and grandiose, others modest and nearly obscured by tangles of grasses.

Among the headstones, gems of Colorado’s past hide in plain sight. A tall, white statue of a horse marks the grave of Colorado farmer and real estate investor Addison Baker. An intricate replica of a miner’s cabin, made of concrete, honors Lester Drake. A stroll of the grounds might reveal the tombstone of former Denver Mayor Amos Steck, or former Gov. John Routt. Fresh flowers adorn some graves lovingly, providing a shock of color in a mostly brown landscape.

Despite its rich history, Riverside has suffered many challenges in recent years, most notably the loss of its water rights in 2001. The cemetery has since struggled to maintain its beauty amid the significant loss of shade, trees and grass. It has fallen into such a state that Colorado Preservation Inc.  The site accommodates only 20 burials a year, compared with some 1,000 burials and cremations at Fairmount Cemetery, Long said.

Riverside now faces a threat from RTD construction. The North Metro Rail Line will run from Union Station to Colorado 7 in Thornton, passing directly in front of Riverside’s entrance at 5201 Brighton Boulevard.

Once the rail line opens, commuter trains will pass by 86 times a day. RTD argues that building a new entrance away from train activity will be safer and prevent potential collisions. RTD spokesman Scott Reed said construction of the entrance has been delayed in the negotiations.

“A new entrance to the cemetery will provide the most convenient possible entrance and exit while maintaining that additional safety,” Reed said.

The proposed entrance would be off a small side street, Race Court, and through a parking lot on the southwest end of the cemetery. RTD is proposing a service road of more than 700 feet through the parking lot that would lead to a new entrance, Long said.

A Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge ruled in June that closing the current entrance will promote public safety, and that the Race Court entrance would be an acceptable alternative. The ruling recommended moving forward so long as RTD also pays Riverside $100,000 for future maintenance.

Now, both sides are awaiting a ruling to determine who will pay for the new entrance’s upkeep. Kendra Briggs, vice president of operations and customer service for Fairmount Cemetery, said the cemetery can’t afford to maintain a new road.

“The city doesn’t want it, and RTD doesn’t want it, and we certainly don’t want it,” Briggs said of the new entrance. “This is a cemetery we have had for 141 years and we’ll have it for another 141 years. We’ll be taking care of it forever.”

Trains have been a long-standing feature of a visit to Riverside, where 38 trains already pass the cemetery daily on a BNSF track. When trains pass, cemetery visitors must wait before exiting or entering. Jim Cavoto, president of the Fairmount Heritage Foundation, said the cemetery has a phone number on hand to call when the train sits in front of the entrance for more than 20 minutes

“We jokingly call it the Riverside experience if the railroad is locking you in,” Cavoto said.

RTD and BNSF Railway Company filed an application to close the entrance in December. More than 80 people wrote letters to protest the new entrance.

“They need to think about the ramifications of changing this historic site,” Briggs said. “It����ap taking away the grand entrance of our cemetery.”

Colorado historians will remember names such as former governors John Routt, John Evans and Samuel Elbert, pioneer Clara Brown and Augusta Tabor. They’re all buried at in 1876.

People still get buried there, with about 13 new plots per year, but maintaining Denver’s oldest cemetery hasn’t been an easy task, thanks to the lack of water rights.

 and a group of loyal volunteers have worked for the past seven years to improve landscaping and preserve a wetland area right next to the cemetery.

“The goal is restore the prairie and wetlands, so it’s an opportunity for people to experience the area the way it was 150 years ago,” said Patricia Carmody, director of the Fairmount Cemetery Company, which owns Riverside.

The foundation had a long court battle over water rights at Riverside and stopped watering altogether in 2003 when Denver Water changed its policy on how it sold water to properties that did not have senior watering rights, Carmody said.

Since then, many trees died and the foundation began planting native grasses and bushes that could survive on rainfall and snow runoff.

Carmody believes the prairie landscape to be a beautiful one and hopes Riverside will be an example of that going forward.

“Riverside is just a way to show that you can have a beautiful place that is sustainable and doesn’t require water. Our big goal now is a master plan and increasing our collaboration.”

Carmody’s focus is on bringing in an educational component that can study either history at the cemetery or nature at the wetland. She’s been operating with the help from volunteers who landscape and work in the office. Groups such as the Colorado Arborist and Lawn Care Professionals, Welby Gardens and the CSU Master Gardeners have also helped.

Ecologist Charlie Chase has regularly brought students from the University of Colorado to the wetlands and has helped with some landscaping knowledge and forming a plan for the future.

“The idea so far is to have people coming here for things associated with the cemetery and building out an ecological program with that,” Chase said.

Chase admits it’s an oddity to think of a cemetery as a place to study ecology.

“A cemetery as a place to study marshes is pretty unusual — I’ve never heard of it anywhere else, but it’s an ideal location for it,” he said.

Carmody gave praise to the volunteers and folks like Chase.

“It’s an example of community collaboration at its best,” she said. “This has been going on for seven years because the community really sees importance in Riverside.”

Gary O’Hara has been a volunteer for the past 15 years, doing landscape work, helping in the office and leading tours.

He said the breadth of history at the cemetery first drew him in.

“It just means more to me to be able to touch their tombstone while I’m talking about them,” O’Hara said. “It’s kind of a funny way of saying it, but it does bring it to life and give a new aspect on the history here.”

Joe Vaccarelli: 303-954-2396, jvaccarelli@denverpost.com or @joe_vacc

Events

Where: Riverside Cemetery, 5201 Brighton Blvd.

Oct 16-17, 23-24: Moonlight History and Mystery Tours

Oct 26: Moonlight Euphoria, full photo shoot

Oct 30: Hops n’ Mysteries: Historic Tivoli Beer and food pairing witha History and Mystery Tour

Info: Ticket prices vary and are available online at fairmount heritagefoundation.org

Updated Oct. 16, 2015 at 1:50 p.m. Due to a reporter’s error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the owner of Riverside Cemetery. The correct owner is the Fairmount Cemetery Company.

The birds and the trees

The Fairmount Heritage Foundation continues its bustling schedule of spring activities offered at , and Riverside Cemetery. Highlights include “History, It’s What’s for Lunch! ” tours, offered the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at Fairmount. Meet at noon at the Gate Lodge for the free program that lasts under an hour. Guests are asked to bring a canned food donation for Metro Caring Food Bank. Free Cemetery Bird Walks are offered April 5 at Riverside and April 18 at Fairmount with Denver field ornithologists. Reservations are required. Fairmount Cemetery, 430 S. Quebec St.; Riverside Cemetery, 5201 Brighton Blvd., fairmountheritagefoundation.org

But there is one destination that’s both park and historic walking tour. It, too, is filled with people, albeit departed ones. We are talking about Fairmount Cemetery, a 280-acre expanse at the southeast corner of Quebec Street and Alameda Avenue.

Fairmount — the city’s second-oldest operating cemetery, behind Riverside — will launch its 125th anniversary with a ceremony at 4 p.m. Friday. During the next few months, the cemetery will honor its past with an eye toward its future.

That future is likely to be more expansive than Denverites might assume. Although 176,000 people are interred, cemetery officials estimate the site has the capacity to continue accepting new remains for another 200 years.

A $5 million capital campaign is underway. Three new mausoleums are being built; they’ll house 336 crypts and 100 niches for urns.

“There is so much history here,” said Michael Long, director of business development, as he piloted a golf cart through the paved lanes that wind through Fairmount on a recent afternoon. “Just look around you.”

Stroll through the grounds and mausoleum, and you encounter some of Denver’s most famous surnames: Iliff, Bonfils, Boettcher, Buchtel, Cheesman, Downing — the same names that grace Mile High thoroughfares and public buildings. Here, they adorn headstones, obelisks and other monuments.

Infamy dwells here, too. John Chivington, the Army officer who led his troops in the , most of them women and children, is buried at Fairmount.

Picnics encouraged

But this is no mere city of the dead. Weddings, christenings and parties are still held at Fairmount, although the staff declines to book events around Halloween. And picnics are encouraged — a nod to the past, when families would tend the graves of loved ones then stay for lunch, hauling out blankets and picnic baskets to dine amid the headstones.

Fairmount was founded in 1890 as an alternative to , which was built in 1876 but was thought to be too close to railroad lines and incoming industry. The land was purchased for $196,000, and the operation was run by a consortium of stockholders that included attorney Willard Teller. Lots went on sale during Christmas 1890.

Fairmount was then several miles from downtown Denver in the middle of prairie. German landscape architect Reinhard Schuetze designed the grounds, which once had their own greenhouses.

“It’s one of the premier cemeteries in our region,” said John Olson, director of preservation programs for , a nonprofit organization dedicated to local history and architecture. “It’s amazing how many famous people are out there.”

Fairmount was built in the style of the Victorian era, when cemeteries were places for reflection and remembrance, minus the macabre associations of later decades. People were more conversant with death. Funerals often were held at home, and many families mourned at least one child who died in infancy.

The cemetery was placed deliberately several miles from the city’s hustle and bustle, requiring a bit of a trek to get there.

Today, Kelly Briggs is president and CEO of Fairmount. He started there 39 years ago as a mechanic, maintaining the tractors, trucks and mowers. His wife, Kendra, is vice president of operations.

Although he appreciates Fairmount’s past — Kelly Briggs jokes that “every street name in Denver is buried here” — he looks toward its future. To push the notion of the cemetery as a multiuse facility, staffers are putting together a list of 125 things to do at the cemetery that will tie in with the anniversary.

For example: Fairmount’s trees — 78 varieties — and grassy lawns, plus its proximity to the Highline Canal on its southeastern border, make it a haven for birds and birdwatchers. Deer graze there, and foxes and coyotes trot the grounds.

In warm weather, a new movie series — free, with popcorn and a food truck — features family fare (sorry, no zombie or vampire flicks). Showings have included “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” “Up” and “The Lego Movie.”

Architecture

Striking architecture punctuates the site. The Gate Lodge and Little Ivy Chapel date to Fairmount’s 1890 opening, both designed by architect .

The lodge formed the arched entryway off Alameda, where a train that ran from Denver to the cemetery stopped. It also was home to the sexton, the caretaker of the grounds. The gray stone chapel echoes the 13th-century Ecclesiastical French Gothic style, complete with flying buttresses.

And — the architect who designed scores of Colorado buildings — is buried at Fairmount in a handsome mausoleum that speaks to his status as a city-shaper.

But Fairmount’s main mausoleum dwarfs Buell’s resting place. The mausoleum’s Greek facade is massive, yet it belies how deep the marble structure stretches from the paved pathway that leads up to its steps. The remains of more than 17,000 people are interred there, some in individual or family crypts, others in glass-fronted niches that house urns.

Strolling the two-level mausoleum’s hushed walkways is fascinating, not just for the building’s sheer grandness but the individual touches evident in loved ones’ final resting places.

Behind the gated family crypts, each family has its own stained-glass window. Some bear religious iconography; others are scenes from nature, a mountain brook or bugling elk. The crypt of Frederick and Valora Bitterman houses a stained-glass window with a rendition of their vacation cabin in Wyoming, ringed with images of family members and pets: dogs, cats and a lone rabbit.

, a longtime president of Fairmount, is buried in a room whose window bears an image of the cemetery’s Ivy Chapel, where Shay was married.

Denver historian Tom Noel, a history professor at the University of Colorado Denver, said Fairmount also is home to some noteworthy sculptures.

“With these monuments, the bereaved and the artist tried to express the sorrow and the loss as well as the hope for eternal life,” said Noel, who worked as a night receptionist at Fairmount while a graduate student. “So you have an angel pointing up to heaven on the Fisher grave,” referencing William Garrett Fisher, co-founder of the former Daniels & Fisher department store, whose clock tower survives downtown.

“What you won’t find is an angel with thumbs down.”

William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/williamporterdp

Flashlights recommended

Get into the Halloween spirit as the Fairmount Heritage Foundation presents the annual Moonlight History & Mystery Tours at Riverside Cemetery. Participants can get the details on the legend of the Lester Drake monument, the secret sorrow of the Bell Family and the mystery surrounding the Jones Mausoleum. Tours start at 4:30, 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26. Tickets are $15 in advance only, no tickets will be sold on site. 5201 Brighton Blvd., 303-322-3895,