Want to escape the 21st century? Under a 10-minute drive from Morrison and 14 miles from Denver is a quiet path that winds along a bumpy mountain, leading to an abandoned cemetery in what remains of a 19th-century ghost town.
Mount Vernon, Colorado – located in what is now Jefferson County — was one of the first settlements to spring up in Jefferson Territory during the Gold Rush era of the mid-1800s. Founded in 1859 by Joseph Castro, the settlement was, for a while, the de facto capital of what would later become the state. What used to be an active neighborhood is now an eerily still hiking route with only two marked graves and two stone buildings left of the entire town.
Today, the land that Mount Vernon was on is part of Matthews / Winters Park. Visitors can take a 2.3-mile moderate hike along a dirt path that winds through meadows, past the ridges of red rocks, and potentially catch a glimpse of deer before coming upon a small fenced enclosure, which marks what is left of Mount Vernon Cemetery…