Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead

Tom Noel, aka “Dr. Colorado,” knows that this town is full of ghosts. As director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver, he’s well acquainted with Denver’s ghastliest tales. “In Capitol Hill, if you dig deep enough, there’s always some tragedy,” Noel says. “We...

By Colin Bane

October 21, 2010

Audio By Carbonatix

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Tom Noel, aka “Dr. Colorado,” knows that this town is full of ghosts. As director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver, he’s well acquainted with Denver’s ghastliest tales. “In Capitol Hill, if you dig deep enough, there’s always some tragedy,” Noel says. “We have some incredibly macabre stories, and the truth is often more bizarre than any horror story you might make up.”

Noel will be raising the dead at 5:30 p.m. today with Capitol Hill Horror Stories at the Grant-Humphreys Mansion, a historic home at 770 Pennsyslvania Street that’s purportedly haunted by the ghost of Albert E. Humphreys. “This is where Mr. Humphreys, the second owner of the mansion, ‘accidentally’ blows his brains off after he’s involved with the Teapot Dome scandal, one of the greatest corruption scandals of the twentieth century,” Noel explains. “So we’ll have his ghost on hand to fill in some of the blanks.”

Other apparitions (played by local historians and UCD history students) will include Denver Post owner Helen Bonfils and her sister May reenacting the family feud that’s left them restless in the afterlife; Mary Elitch discussing the strange happenings with her two husbands in the early days of Elitch Gardens, Augusta Tabor presenting her perspective on hubby Horace’s sex scandal with Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt, and “Jack the Strangler” Market Street murder victims Kiku Oyama, Lena Tapper and Marie Contasoit, among others.

Tickets are $45 for History Colorado members, $55 non-members; for reservations, call 303-866-4686.
Mon., Oct. 25, 5:30 p.m., 2010

Colin Bane

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