Cheesman Park

In the minds of most locals, the Cheesman Park neighborhood is the eastern swath of Capitol Hill, where the apartment buildings mix with elegant single-family homes and the hubbub of young revelers is muffled a little by the rustling of the leaves. The neighborhood offers a few bars and eateries on 13th Avenue (such as the venerable Gabor’s bar and Liks ice cream), but, in between Capitol Hill with its myriad of offerings to the west, and the more sedate stretch of cafes along 12th Avenue in Congress Park to the east, residents aren’t hurting for choice in terms of dining, activities, or nightlife.

The closer you get to Cheesman Park itself, the higher housing costs go, until on the streets immediately surrounding it, you’ll find flat-out mansions as well as luxury high-rise towers. What that gets you is a beautiful neighborhood of old trees and historic houses right next to one of Denver’s best green spaces.

Cheesman Park is picturesque, with its gently rising hill topped with a stately, white-columned neoclassical pavilion. At pretty much any time of day, any time of year, runners and bikers use the 1.8 mile jogging and biking trail that circumnavigates the park, passing by the back of the Botanic Gardens and under colonnades of deciduous trees. In the summer, people use the grassy open spaces to throw tennis balls to their dogs, play Frisbee, and lie on blankets in the sun.

What the joggers and sunbathers probably aren’t thinking about are the bodies, as many as 4,000 of them, that are buried under Cheesman Park. In Denver’s early years, the area that is now Cheesman Park, as well as the Botanic Gardens to the east, were all Mount Prospect cemetery – and before that, an Arapahoe Indian burial ground. By the 1890s, the cemetery was no longer used, and had become decrepit and overgrown. The city was growing up around it quickly, and decided that it needed the land for homes and a park. Some of the dead were relocated by their families, but many – young men who moved to Denver in the Wild West days and died in gunfights and accidents – were left behind. The Cheesman Park neighborhood is a great place to live, but in addition to being one of the most central and most historic neighborhoods in Denver, buyer beware – it may also be one of the most haunted!

The Cheesman Park neighborhood is a great place to call home. Having lived in the neighborhood for 6 years, I wouldn't choose another in Denver.

Cheesman Park is frequented by joggers and dog walkers and is host to several civic events from the Denver AIDS Walk, Symphony Concerts, Opera, Movie under the Stars, to the setup for the Pride Parade.