Est. 1889 · NRHP Listed · Margaret Brown Residence · Titanic Survivor Home · Historic Denver Founding Project
Margaret Tobin Brown was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867. She moved to Leadville, Colorado in 1886 and married mining engineer James Joseph Brown there in 1886. The Browns became wealthy after J.J. led the team that developed an extraction technique for the previously unworkable gold ore at the Little Jonny Mine in 1893. In 1894 the Browns purchased the Pennsylvania Street house, designed five years earlier by Denver architect William A. Lang in a Queen Anne style with Richardsonian Romanesque masonry elements.
Margaret Brown used Denver as a base for activism in women's suffrage, juvenile justice reform, labor rights, and the cultural life of the city. She was a major early patron of the Denver Art Museum, an organizer for striking miners during the 1913 to 1914 Colorado Coalfield War, and a candidate for the United States Senate before women had the right to vote nationally.
In April 1912 Margaret Brown returned to the United States from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, having been called home for her grandson's illness. When the ship struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Brown helped load other passengers into lifeboats and was eventually placed in Lifeboat 6 herself. She subsequently led collections for steerage survivors aboard the rescue ship Carpathia and was photographed presenting an award to Carpathia Captain Arthur Rostron. The press named her the Unsinkable Mrs. Brown; the Molly nickname was a later Hollywood invention popularized by the 1960 Broadway musical and 1964 film The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Margaret Brown died in New York City in 1932. The Pennsylvania Street house passed through several uses, including operation as a boarding house, and by the early 1970s faced demolition. Historic Denver Inc., founded specifically to save the house, purchased and restored it. The museum opened in 1971 and continues as Historic Denver's flagship property.
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Denver Landmark.
Sources
- https://mollybrown.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Brown_House
- https://www.colorado.com/history-museums/molly-brown-house-museum
- https://beyondhaunted.com/colorado/molly-brown-house
- https://theforgottengrimoire.com/the-molly-brown-house/
- https://kdvr.com/news/local/haunted-happenings-at-the-molly-brown-house-as-told-by-the-museum-director/
- https://spookfinder.com/place/molly-brown-house
- https://dailydoseofdeath.com/molly-brown-house-denvers-unsinkable-ghost/
Phantom smellsPhantom voicesApparitionsPhantom sounds
Compared to other major American historic-house museums, the Molly Brown House has a relatively contained paranormal record. The most-cited account concerns the sense of pipe or cigar smoke detected in the front parlor on otherwise smoke-free days. J.J. Brown was a daily cigar smoker, and the detail provides a tidy connection to his documented habits.
Docents and overnight cleaning staff have on multiple occasions reported the rustle of long fabric on the front staircase when no one is on the stairs. The rustling is sometimes accompanied by faint floral scent. The figure occasionally observed in the dining room is described as female and in Victorian dress; witnesses split between identifying her as Margaret Brown and as her mother, who lived with the family for periods.
The basement Natural Resources Center, which was originally J.J. Brown's mining-business office, produces a separate cluster of reports, including the sound of papers being shuffled and a man's voice speaking briefly in a low register. The house has been the site of paranormal investigations by Colorado-based teams, none of which have produced widely-accepted documentary evidence.
Historic Denver presents these accounts as part of the house's visitor experience without endorsing supernatural interpretations. Margaret Brown's well-documented life and Titanic story remain the museum's primary interpretive focus.
Notable Entities
Margaret BrownJ.J. Brown
