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3 Unique & Weird Reasons To Visit Denver, Colorado

Denver is known for its unique neighbourhoods, each with an attraction of its own. Art lovers should head to River North (RiNo), with its warehouses and street art. Shoppers and diners will appreciate Highlands and Lower Highlands, with their shopping and restaurant districts. For fun, people head to the bars of Lower Downtown (LoDo), along with the Santa Fe Arts District, the upscale Cherry Creek area and the historic Five Points.

Even better, the entire city is well connected with a series of bike paths and parks. While this Colorado city has all this, it also features some unique locations to visit. Here are three.

1. The Terrorium Shop, 3611 W 49th Ave, Denver

Image @theterroriumshop/Instagram

The Terrorium Shop is a quaint hidden gem in Denver, Colorado, which combines living flora with preserved bones. The idea of the shop started out as a strange little hobby, but has become a business after its owner, Amber Hage-Ali, gifted her partner, Ian Johnson with a “terrorium.” This was a glass vessel, containing a skull, combined with living plants. Johnson is a taxidermist, and loved the idea of combining life and death into one artistic vessel.

Together, Amber and Ian combined their skills to create these quirky “terroriums” and initially sold them at the market. However, what started as a booth at the local craft market in 2017 has blossomed into a brick and mortar store.

Image @theterroriumshop/Instagram

On the shop’s shelves are many handmade “preserved mini-worlds,” as well as unique dome dislays featuring preserved reptiles, pinned insects and animal bones. The shop also sells a collection of planters, some of which also feature bones. Created as a play on the modern terrarium, these were designed to invoke a macabre feeling and ideally combine skulls with living plants to highlight the magical process of decay and regrowth.

2. The Room of Lost Things, 987 Santa Fe Dr, Denver

Image @roomoflostthings/Instagram

In keeping with the odd and macabre, we now visit The Room of Lost Things in Denver. This store specializes in all kinds of strange things, including everything from mummified Prairie dogs to fossils, preserved creatures and everything in between.

Image @roomoflostthings/Instagram

The artists and employees are welcoming and knowledgeable about everything on display in the store, which is set in the Sante Fe Arts District. As noted on their website, The Room of Lost Things offers “all things strange and unusual.” Their offerings are some of the world’s weirdest and most unusual oddities, curiosities and taxidermy for your “macabre/hipster/horror collection.”

3. Cheesman Park, Denver

Cheesman Park was built on unclaimed graves and is a place of ghost stories. The park was designed by architects Willis A. Marean and Albert Julius Norton in 1910. It covers 80 landscaped acres in the heart of central Denver. The site has long been considered to be one of the most haunted sites in America.

Image by Amy Aletheia Cahill/Flickr

Initially, in 1858, 320 acres of Denver were set aside to be used as a cemetery. It was originally named Mount Prospect and was designed to hold the bodies of the rich and wealthy on one side, with those of beggars and criminals on the other. In between, bodies of everyone else were buried. The lower side filled more quickly, with the victims of accidents and brutal crimes and locals started referring to the cemetery as “Old Boneyard.” Eventually, the cemetery fell into disrepair, with cattle grazing among the fallen tombstones. It was now maintained by the owner, or the families of the deceased buried there.

In the 1890s, the city took control of the cemetery and ordered all the bodies removed so the area could be cleaned up. It was a horrific sight when more than 5,000 dead bodies were dug up and removed from the cemetery. No respect was paid to the dead and soon, residents in the area started seeing spectral manifestations in their homes and in the cemetery. They claimed confused spirits were knocking on their doors and windows, with low moaning sounds heard in the cemetery area.

Image by David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons

It was around this time that residents of the area began to report seeing spectral manifestations in their homes and out in the cemetery. Confused spirits, they said, were knocking on their doors and windows. Low moaning sounds were reported to be coming from the field of open graves.

Over time, the headlines in the newspapers caused the city to stop removing the bodies. The holes were filled and the remaining bodies forgotten. It is thought there was as many as 2,000 - 3,000 bodies still buried under the park.

For those who love the weird and macabre, these three locations are a must-see on your next trip to Denver, Colorado!