Haunted Places in Southern Colorado: 11 Spooky Sites to Visit This Halloween
A lantern-lit passage in Cave of the Winds, Manitou Springs.
With its frontier past, Southern Colorado is home to its fair share of spooks and haunts. Looking for a fun outing this Halloween season? Hit the road for these eerie sites.
Colorado Springs
With graves dating back to the 1860s, some of Evergreen Cemetery ’s residents are rumored to haunt the grounds’ small chapel. Built in the early 1900s to store caskets, workers and visitors have reported dark figures and negative forces in the structure. To this day, stains from the bodily fluids of corpses from centuries past can allegedly be seen on underground slabs in the chapel’s basement.
The chapel at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. Gold Camp Road tunnels , southwest of downtown in North Cheyenne Cañon Park, originally constructed for a railroad connecting Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek during the region’s gold rush, have spawned their fair share of paranormal activity and urban myths.
According to legend, visitors who park their cars in the second open tunnel will feel their cars pushed uphill by an unseen force and find tiny handprints on their bumper or windows. Other visitors have reported being touched, grabbed or even scratched on their journey through the tunnels.
Manitou Springs
Built in 1895 and later used as a sanatorium by the Sisters of Mercy, visitors to the Miramont Castle Museum have reported cold spots, echoing footsteps, disembodied whispers, the apparition of a man in early-1900s clothing reflected in a castle mirror and ghostly nuns drifting through the hallways.
Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek’s rough-and-tumble past as a historic mining town has spawned a plethora of paranormal activity. The casinos aren’t just a place to gamble; visitors can also catch glimpses of the other side with Buffalo Billy Casino ’s spirit of a young girl who draws on the walls and throws bar glasses, and Colorado Grande Casino ’s Maggie, a turn-of-the-century Irish woman who has a penchant for roses and slot machines.
You can stay at the Hotel St. Nicholas , originally constructed in the 1890s as a hospital, which later became a nursing home. Some of the hotel’s well-known paranormal guests include Petey, believed to be the ghost of a young boy the Sisters of Mercy cared for; The Miner, an apparition of an old gold miner; and Stinky, who is associated with an unexplained, unpleasant odor.
The Outlaws and Lawmen Jail Museum was the Teller County Jail for more than 90 years and held petty criminals as well as the region’s roughest characters during the lawlessness of the gold rush. Visitors report hearing laughter from what used to be the solitary confinement cell and seeing small children who quickly disappear.
Nearby Mt. Pisgah Cemetery holds residents from all the way back to the 1890s. Those long dead are known to be seen milling among their graves.
Glenwood Springs
Originally constructed as a luxury getaway by a silver baron in the 1890s, the stately Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs has played host to a variety of famous visitors, including presidents and wealthy tycoons. Its basement served as a morgue when the hotel was commissioned as a naval hospital during World War II. Some of those visitors never left, lingering as spectral presences.
Notable ghosts include “Bobbie,” rumored to be a nurse (from the hotel’s days as a naval hospital) who was killed by a jealous lover and officer. Guests catch a whiff of Bobbie’s perfume trailing from her favorite table in the dining room to the buffet line and back.
Another famous ghost is nicknamed “Walter,” after the hotel’s founder, Walter Devereux. He’s been seen around the halls and lobby in the evening, the unmistakable smell of cigar smoke marking his presence.
The hotel’s basement is notable for paranormal activity, including apparitions, disembodied voices and the sound of a typewriter.
Other SoCo haunts
Stop in for the history, stay for the spooks at the Museum of Colorado Prisons in Cañon City. Originally constructed in the 1930s as a women’s prison, the museum guides visitors through jail cells featuring artifacts from former inmates, confiscated weapons and the last hangman’s noose. Visitors report the apparitions of former inmates touching, pushing, grabbing or speaking to them.
Catch natural and paranormal sites on Phantom Canyon Road , a detour from the Gold Belt tour and scenic byway. Originally cut for a railroad between Florence, Victor and Cripple Creek, the twisty, unpaved road winds through eerie tunnels and the centuries-old ghost towns of Wilbur, Adelaide and Glenbrook. Various specters have been spotted on the road, including the ghost of an 1890s inmate who was first seen on the railway days after he was executed.
Find the Haunts
Colorado Springs
Evergreen Cemetery Map ↗
Gold Camp Road tunnels Map ↗
Manitou Springs
Miramont Castle Museum Map ↗
Cripple Creek
Buffalo Billy’s Casino Map ↗
Colorado Grande Casino Map ↗
Hotel St. Nicholas Map ↗
Outlaws and Lawmen Jail Museum Map ↗
Mt. Pisgah Cemetery Map ↗
Glenwood Springs
Hotel Colorado Map ↗
Cañon City and beyond
Museum of Colorado Prisons Map ↗
Phantom Canyon Road Map ↗
Keep Reading
This month October in Southern Colorado: Halloween Events, Haunts and Harvest Fun The backstory A Brief History of Colorado Springs
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