Cheesman Park is a picturesque, tree-lined park that offers a nice green space in Denver. However, what many visitors don’t know is that the park actually inspired one of Hollywood’s most popular and influential horror movies with its morbid history.
The core premise of the movie “Poltergeist” was inspired by Cheesman Park, which was built on top of a botched pioneer cemetery. According to Visit Denver, Cheesman Park was originally established as Denver’s first cemetery in 1858, used to bury criminals, the poor and the diseased. The city decided to turn the graveyard into a park in 1890, and hired E.P. McGovern to remove the bodies in 1893.
This is where the story gets weird. McGovern was being paid $1.90 for each body removed, and realized that he could make more money if he hacked the bodies to fit multiple remains in child-sized coffins. When the scam was uncovered, the contract was canceled, but some bodies in the area weren’t removed prior to the park’s construction. Nowadays, some visitors of the park occasionally report paranormal activity…