Denver's Oldest Operating Cemetery on the South Platte
5201 Brighton Boulevard, Denver, CO 80216
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free during posted daylight hours. Donations support the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery preservation effort.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved drives and grass paths across 77 acres
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1876 · Denver's Oldest Operating Cemetery · National Register of Historic Places 1994 · Medal of Honor Burials · Colorado Pioneer Cemetery
The Riverside Cemetery Association was formed in 1876, in the months leading up to Colorado's August admission to the union, as a replacement for the increasingly overcrowded City Cemetery in central Denver. The new grounds were laid out on a 77-acre site along the east bank of the South Platte River, approximately four miles downstream from the central city.
The first burial at Riverside, of Henry H. Walton, took place on June 1, 1876. The cemetery quickly became the principal burial ground for Denver's territorial-era civic and commercial founders. Riverside holds the remains of more than 67,000 individuals, including roughly one thousand military veterans, three Medal of Honor recipients (Day, Hasting, and Kelley), and a substantial number of Civil War-era pioneers who migrated to Colorado after the war.
The Riverside Cemetery Association transferred its assets to the Fairmount Cemetery Association in 1900, and Fairmount has owned and operated Riverside continuously since. The grounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
By the early 2000s the cemetery faced significant preservation challenges, including water-rights limits affecting irrigation and weathering damage to nineteenth-century stones. Colorado Preservation, Inc. listed Riverside as one of Colorado's most endangered places in 2008. The Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery, formed in response, support ongoing conservation, education, and self-guided tour programming. The cemetery continues to accept burials at a modest rate.
Sources
Riverside is unusual among well-known American cemeteries in that its paranormal reputation runs well behind its historical significance. The site's primary interest is documentary, not spectral. The Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery program tours that focus on Colorado territorial-era figures, Medal of Honor recipients, and the social history of Denver's nineteenth-century immigrant communities.
Incidental reports of paranormal activity do circulate, mostly among ghost-tour participants and Denver-area paranormal investigators. Visitors describe brief impressions of figures among the older Victorian-era stones, the sound of footsteps in unoccupied sections of the grounds, and occasional reports of cold pockets in summer near the older grids closest to the South Platte. The cemetery does not actively program around these accounts.
Walk Denver's oldest operating cemetery, established 1876, across 77 acres along the South Platte River. The cemetery holds more than 67,000 burials including three Medal of Honor recipients, hundreds of Civil War veterans, and many of Colorado's territorial-era founders. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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