The Ghostly Tales of Colorado's Front Range

By Shelli Timmons

Welcome to the spooky streets of Colorado's Front Range!

Stay alert! Ghosts lurk around every corner. Even the most unexpected places might be haunted by wandering phantoms.

Did you know that in an old courthouse, a ghostly little boy loves to leave handprints -- on the ceiling? Or that the old mining tunnels beneath many towns are haunted? Can you believe that two disembodied heads float through the Capitol building in Denver?

Pulled right from history, these ghostly tales will change the way you see Colorado's Front Range, and have you sleeping with the light on!?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: May 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781439672372

Shelli Timmons

Shelli Timmons writes for kids of all ages. After many years working with numbers, she realized she liked letters a whole lot more, so she stepped away from the world of finance and entered the realm of stories. She loves old houses and buildings, and is always open to sharing space with a ghost or two. She currently lives in Central Texas in a house much newer than she'd prefer, with an equal number of people and dogs.

Book preview

Introduction

In 1876, Colorado became the thirty-eighth state of the United States of America, and its official nickname became the Centennial State. Centennial refers to a one-hundredth anniversary, and Colorado officially became a state one-hundred years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is also called Colorful Colorado, and this one is easy to figure out. All you have to do is take a quick look around at the beautiful flowers, trees, rivers, and mountains, and you’ll understand immediately what inspired this nickname.

There’s a lot to see and do in Colorado, from skiing and rock climbing, to touring old mines and panning for gold. Colorado has four national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park, home to Long’s Peak, the highest peak in the Front Range, at 14,259 feet. The parks are full of amazing wildlife, and you may spot elk, moose, bighorn sheep, and even a bear or two!

The Front Range is a two-hundred-mile section of the Rocky Mountains that divides Colorado almost down the middle. It is sometimes called the backbone. This area stretches from the Arkansas River in southern Colorado north to the Wyoming border. The towns located along the mountains and foothills of the Front Range are called the Front Range Urban Corridor. These towns, including Boulder, Golden, Denver, and Colorado Springs, are also home to a variety of wildlife. And in certain places, there is a chance you might spot more than elk, moose, sheep, or even bears— you might see ghosts!

You could catch a glimpse of a shadow sneaking around the corner or feel a set of eyes staring at you in the dark. You could even encounter a mysterious image in plain sight, one that doesn’t try to hide at all. It might be a mischief maker, but then again, it could be a much calmer spirit.

We’ll be traveling north to south on our Front Range ghost tour, so get ready. Here we go!

Fort Collins

Northern Colorado was not a very busy place in the nineteenth century. The area now known as Fort Collins saw only a few stagecoaches and trains traveling along the roads and tracks. Fur trappers and travelers passed through now and again but, overall, it was pretty quiet. Then along came the gold rush, and things were never so quiet again.

Camp Collins, which would later become Fort Collins, was established in 1862. It was a military fort named for Lieutenant Colonel William Collins. The fort was little more than a cluster of cabins and tents on the banks of the Poudre River. In 1867, this military fort was closed and abandoned, leaving behind a small military cemetery.

By 1910, an actual town was taking shape, and the Fort Collins military cemetery ground was planned to be the site of the Fort Collins Post Office. The graves had no markers, and only six bodies were found and relocated before construction of the post office began. Other bodies likely still remain in their original graves, possibly now under buildings or sidewalks.

Fort Collins today is a busy city. It is home to Colorado State University, many tech companies, restaurants, and nearly 170,000 people. That’s the count for living people, anyway. No one is sure how many ghosts