The Spooky Season
Venture If You Dare, Into Denver’s Macabre Wonderland
Story By Rebecca Zimmerman
Photos by Cara DeGette
For the GPHN
When October turns the leaves of our ancient trees golden and red, Park Hill doesn’t merely nod to the onset of fall with sweaters and spicy lattes from one of our local coffee joints – it fully embraces the spectral spirit of Halloween in all its eerie splendor.
This is not just another neighborhood dotted with the occasional jack-o’-lantern; Park Hill transforms into a macabre wonderland, where ghouls dance on front lawns, haunted houses spring to life with chilling tales, and every street corner seems to whisper of urban legends and playful spooks. Venture if you dare into the heart of Denver’s most bewitched borough, where Halloween is not just a day, but a grand, spine-tingling tradition.
Perhaps the neighborhood’s most wonderful and enduring tradition was born in the tragic and deadly finale of Denver’s so-called “Summer of Violence” in 1993. On Halloween that year, 18-year old Carl Banks, Jr. was chaperoning younger kids as they trick-or-treated and was randomly murdered in a drive-by shooting.
To help rebuild the community’s sense of safety and solidarity, neighbors introduced the “Ghost Posts.” These iconic stations, established at various locations across the neighborhood, function as safe check-in spots for wandering trick-or-treaters. Monitored by vigilant adults, the posts not only provide a sanctuary amid the Halloween revelry but often offer warm treats and drinks to stave off the chilly October air – and are ironically the spots least likely to get spooked by any “real” specters.
Finding phantoms
Adding to Park Hill’s unique Halloween tapestry is another cherished practice, one that might be a surprise to newcomers: trick-or-treating traditionally ends by 8 p.m. Instead of switching off the porch light, however, residents ensure the streets remain bathed in the glow of house lights for maximum safety. A simple sign on their doors signals the end of the candy-giving ritual. (And if you’re looking for one of those signs? Dee and Steve Ciancio, part of the visionary group that began these safety-driven Halloween traditions 30 years ago, still offer them to anyone in need.)
The heart of this story isn’t just about safety; it’s about a community coming together, generation after generation, to ensure that the spirit of Halloween lives on, both in fun and in collective care.
Other spirits that continue to live on are Park Hillians from ages past—departed from this mortal coil yet loathe to leave the neighborhood they loved. And who can blame them? McAuliffe International School has a whole cohort of phantoms. One haunts a girls’ bathroom. Another’s ghostly singing has been recorded on a staff member’s mobile phone. That apparition possibly dates to six decades ago when the school’s gymnasium was used as a morgue after a horrific plane crash at nearby Stapleton Airport.
A charming Queen Anne on Montview was the site of a scandalous society murder in 1917, leading to generations of future residents reporting unexplained bumps and crashes late at night.
A notorious Colorado serial killer buried bodies in the backyard of his rental in the northwest part of the neighborhood, leaving an impression of evil that lingers 20 years later.
Yet, perhaps the most otherworldly spot lies inside the gothic parapets of Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church. The apparitions there groan, smoke cigars, hold dinner parties, and have even been captured in photographs, according to church staff and worshippers over the years.
The secrets of the house
If your house isn’t similarly haunted, never fear. It seems that sometimes even the spookiest of hauntings take some time to manifest. Dan Danbom, proprietor of The Printed Page bookstore on South Broadway and a collector of many of Denver’s little-known stories, recalls the tale of a Spanish-style home with a blue tile roof and stucco near Monaco and 23rd Avenue.
When he was a child, his relatives, a mother-and-daughter duo, moved into the house. It was, Danbom describes, the perfect gothic setting for paranormal activity.
“The rain had kind of made the blue dye on the tile run so it looked like it had tears coming down the front of the house on the stucco … it was a spooky house,” he says. Perpetually drawn dark velvet drapes gave the interior a similar silent and foreboding vibe.
Danbom’s mother, an avid newspaper reader, imparted knowledge to Dan and his brother that the family didn’t dare share with the two ladies living alone in the house — the former resident had hanged himself in the dark recesses of the basement.
Although Danbom and his brother never uttered a word of the home’s tragic history, they secretly hoped the childhood boredom of coerced visits to stuffy elder relatives would be broken by some thrilling ghostly antics. They were disappointed: nary a shadow or whisper materialized to spook them.
Fifteen years ago, things changed. Danbom dropped by a promising-looking garage sale at the house next door to his relatives’ former home. He couldn’t resist sharing the story of the haunted house to the people running the garage sale. They nodded knowingly.
Yes, that makes perfect sense, Danbom remembers them saying. “The people who live there would see impressions on the bed after they made it as if someone had been sleeping on it, and they would smell tobacco although no one smoked, and other weird stuff that happened in that house,” he says, “and that kind of sends a chill down your spine.”
Rattling from fenceposts
On Oct. 31, Park Hill will embrace the long-standing rituals that have become established tradition for the spooky season. Life-sized skeletons will rattle from fenceposts and lounge on porch chairs all over the neighborhood. Neighbors will set up smoke machines and compile spooky playlists, and stock up on full-sized candybars.
Block parties will put the Monster Mash to shame and even the adults will deck out like backup dancers from Thriller. Residents, as always, will take pride in passing out the kind of trick-or-treats that draw vanloads of excited children from all over the metro area. And all of this will be drawing on tradition as deep as the roots of the gnarled trees along our famous parkways and boulevards.
So as the most bewitching day of the year approaches, keep two things in mind: stay safe, and stay spooky.
