Many of the headstones and statues in Riverside Cemetery have fallen into disrepair.
BOUNDARIES: Brighton Blvd., York St., South Platte River
DISTANCE: 1.5 miles
DIFFICULTY: Easy
PARKING: Free parking is available inside the cemetery.
PUBLIC TRANSIT: RTD 48 bus makes stops on Brighton Blvd.
Riverside Cemetery is Denver’s oldest cemetery, though not its first. Cemeteries in the Cheesman Park and Highlands neighborhoods were closed, and the bodies of those interred were moved to Riverside shortly after it opened in 1876. At the time it was a welcome alternative to the neglected and damaged cemeteries in the city, but now Riverside itself is dying. The short version is this: Riverside has not been watered since 2003. It’s one irony on top of another: a place devoted to the dead was designed to attract the living with its parklike setting of shade trees and flower beds next to a river, but research in the 1980s determined the cemetery did not actually have water rights to the nearby river and the tap was shut off for this 77-acre cemetery. This designated national historic district is located just two miles from downtown and partially in the industrial zone of Commerce City. Some of Denver’s earliest pioneers and most notable citizens who shaped the city and state lie here, as well as servicemen from the Civil War through the Gulf War, and various clusters of headstones devoted to different religious and ethnic groups are seen here. Rocky Mountain views to the west are visible from just about anywhere in the cemetery, and from other vantage points you will see the city’s skyline as you wander amongst the eerie and beautiful historic headstones.
Note: All of the gravel pathways on this walk are roads, and cars do have access at all times too. Riverside Cemetery is open daily, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Walk Description
Begin the walk in front of the office, which is to the right of the gated entrance. (At the time of this writing, the Public Utilities Commission was trying to force the closure of Riverside’s historic entrance. Presumably there will be signs installed directing visitors to a new entrance if this effort was successful.) Volunteers generally staff the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the first Wednesday of every month. On the left side of the building is a small chapel with wooden pews and a stained glass window, and in the office are the original handwritten internment ledgers and maps. No matter where you are in the cemetery, the coal trains rumbling by and blowing their whistles are audible, but as you get deeper into the cemetery the sounds and industrial fumes seem to fade away.
The office and entrance area are part of the 12% of Riverside that actually lies within the Denver County limits, while the rest of the cemetery is part of Adams County.
According to the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery, a nonprofit group of volunteers trying to help preserve the cemetery, of the 67,000 people buried at Riverside only about half have grave markers. Riverside was dedicated as a National Historic District in 1992.
Walk around the left of the flagpole area while staying on the gravel footpath. You’ll see a small green marker with a white 36 painted on it to your left. Continue to follow the path as it curves left past green marker 35.
At the 19 marker, you will see the blue and white St. Michael’s Plot, erected in 1918. According to Annette L. Student in her excellent book, Denver’s Riverside Cemetery: Where History Lies, this plot is used for members of the Holy Transfiguration of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, which is located in nearby Globeville and was founded by Russian and Serbian immigrants.
Turn right and walk north so that St. Michael’s Plot is on your left.
Veer right again to walk between section 16 on the left and 15 on the right. (Note that St. Michael’s Plot was in the little 19 section and adjacent to the little 15 section, both of which have larger sections with the same number on the east side of this path.)
Make a hard left at the six-point intersection. To your right is a 2003 Colorado Confederate Veterans Memorial with flagpole.
Turn left again to walk parallel to the cemetery’s three mausoleums in what is called “the bottoms” of Riverside. Annette Student reports in her book that the first mausoleum is actually empty. Businessman Hartsville F. Jones was never buried in this mausoleum. Next up is the underground mausoleum of Martha T. Evans and seven other family members. Although locked wrought iron gates secure the tomb, the wooden doors that cover the stairs to the underground chamber are no longer in place, and you can feel the cool air from below on the hottest day. It’s a creepy spot. Martha T. Evans (no relation to John Evans and family, who will be mentioned later on the tour) moved to Denver in 1882 with her children and worked as treasurer of a candy company, writes Student. The third mausoleum is for Ovando James Hollister, who came to Colorado to farm in the 1850s, then joined the Colorado Infantry during the Civil War, and later became an editor of the Rocky Mountain News.
Turn around and walk north back toward the flagpole. On your left is private cemetery property, but also the history of the water issues at Riverside. The South Platte River lies to the west and was the original water source for the cemetery’s thousands of trees. After losing their free water access rights, Fairmount Cemetery Company, the owners of Riverside since 1900, fought the decision all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court and lost. In 2003 Fairmount could no longer afford to pay for watering Riverside, and it has been dry ever since. The small reservoir below is home to various birds and wildlife throughout the year. Walking across this crunchy, desiccated ground does give one the sense of what Colorado’s pioneers faced when they first came to these arid plains and tried to farm and build.
Turn right and walk up the small hill with the first mausoleum on your right.
At the six-point intersection again, turn left to walk on the path in front of the stone house. This is the only other office building at the cemetery, but it is not open to the public.
As you continue walking north, section 13 on your left has three notable markers. The first is a large granite marker with the name EVANS for Evan E. Evans and his wife, Annie Cecilia Evans. Mr. Evans was the son of John Evans, whose own gray granite memorial is in the same section just ahead. The elder Mr. Evans was appointed by Abraham Lincoln to be the second territorial governor of Colorado from 1862 to 1865, and Mount Evans just west of Denver is named after him. His wife, Margaret Evans, is buried next to him, according to Student’s book. (See Walk 2 for information on the Byers-Evans House owned by William Evans.) Nearby is the headstone for Samuel Hitt Elbert, who also served as a governor of the Territory of Colorado. Although you may not be able to see them from this spot, there are two impressive mountain peaks named after these men—Mount Evan and Mount Elbert—in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
Back here in the cemetery, you may be wondering if that man on a grave marker has a mountain named after him. Alas, no, he does not. That is a bronze statue replica of Colonel James Archer atop the 10-foot-high granite grave marker. He is best known for creating the Denver Gas Works, which brought gas lighting to streetlights and people’s homes in the late 1870s.
Turn right to walk east, with section 4 on your left and section 5 on the right. About halfway down section 4 is a large boulder marker for Katrina Murat, the third white woman to live in Denver, writes Student, and known as the “Mother of Colorado” for making the first US flag (from her own clothes, no less!) to fly over Denver in 1859. Her husband, Count Henri Murat, has a flat marker in front of hers, and if you read more history on this couple you’ll see why that is a fitting arrangement.
At the next intersection you do not even need to turn to see a white horse on top of a memorial. According to Student, the sandstone horse “is the only one of its kind in a U.S. cemetery.” Her research found that the family of Addison Baker had the statue made for his grave because of his love of horses. He is remembered for delivering fresh water in barrels to Denver residents in 1860 from a freshwater spring on his property in West Denver.
Turn left and walk to Lester Drake’s Cabin, perhaps the most unique headstone here—or anywhere. Research by the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery found that Lester Drake was a gold miner in Black Hawk, Colorado, and this limestone monument is a replica of his mining cabin. The detail in the front of the cabin includes mining tools.
Lester Drake’s Cabin
Turn right into the circular section 7.
Turn left almost immediately and walk south. Just behind a large marker with the name GIBSON is a smaller monument for Augusta Tabor (she has two markers here: the smaller one chosen by her, the other a dedication), which describes her as the “epitome of a pioneer.” Tabor came to Colorado with her husband, Horace Tabor, who went on to make a fortune in Leadville’s Matchless Mine and then divorced Augusta after he fell in love with a woman who came to be known as “Baby Doe.”
Some of Denver’s most prominent early residents are buried at Riverside Cemetery.
Walk right as the circle turns. On the left you will see the gray draped urn marking the Zang burial plots. Philip Zang came from Germany in the 1860s and established the Zang Brewery, which during its peak was the largest brewery between San Francisco and Saint Louis.
Walk right around the circle and to your left is the gray granite obelisk for Miguel Antonio Otero, whom Student describes as the “first native New Mexican elected as a delegate to the U.S. Congress” in 1855. For reasons not given, Otero did not want to be buried in New Mexico. Just to the right of Otero’s marker—and much closer to the ground—is the headstone for Roger Woodbury, for whom the Woodbury Branch Library in the Highlands neighborhood is named (see Walk 9).
Take the first left out of the circle and walk east.
Take the left fork in the path and walk with section 5 on your left and section 4 on your right.
Turn right to walk north and again past Col. Archer. The plot on the left with the white marble cross is the only section of the cemetery designated for a particular religious or ethnic group. This is the Catholic section. To your right in section 8 is a monument to Sarah (Sadie) Likens, Denver’s first police matron.
Turn right between sections 9 and 10.
Turn right again between sections 25 and 24. Just to the right of the heavily eroded red sandstone marker is a small granite marker for Aunt Clara Brown, who was born a slave and freed in 1857. She came to Denver in 1859 and ran a successful laundry business for miners; by then she was in her 60s. She is honored with a stained glass window at the Colorado State Capitol Building (see Walk 1).
Veer left as the path goes to the cemetery’s most northeastern corner.
Turn right to walk south between sections 27 and 21. On your left are the small white military grave markers—many of which simply read UNKNOWN—of the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery. Notable here is the grave of Capt. Silas Soule (found to the right of the flagpole in the third row), who testified against Col. John Chivington in a review of the Sand Creek Massacre (see Walk 7).
At section 20, veer left to walk with section 28 on your left and section 20 on your right.
Then veer right to walk with section 2 on your right and section 20 and the property line fence on your left. In section 20 is the marker for Barney Ford, who was born a slave and the son of his white owner in Virginia. Ford came to Colorado and repeatedly tried to make it as a miner, but African Americans were not allowed to own mine claims, Student points out. He became a successful businessman as owner of restaurants and hotels in Denver, and his prominent role in gaining rights for African Americans earned him a stained glass portrait in the Colorado State Capitol Building (see Walk 1).
When you reach the intersection near the office again, look to your right to section 6. You will see the marker for John Long Routt, who served as the last governor of the Colorado Territory before statehood and then was elected as Colorado’s first state governor in 1876. He was mayor of Denver from 1883 to 1885, then reelected as state governor in 1891. Routt County, Colorado, is named for him.
The walk ends at the office on your left.
Before you head back to the living in downtown, stop and explore this little corner of Denver. Artists are modern-day pioneers, and when neighborhoods like LoDo and the Highlands got developed and rents increased in the 1990s, creative types looked northeast to the empty warehouses and industrial zones of Globeville and the northern edge of the Denver city limits. Today it’s called RiNo, short for River North. See Walk 13 for a tour.
Riverside Cemetery
Point of Interest
Riverside Cemetery 5201 Brighton Blvd., friendsofriversidecemetery.org or fairmount-cemetery.com