HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Fort Collins ice cream shop above a 1920s morgue tunnel, haunted by café owner Charlie Dinnebeck and gambler Jack Cassidy
125 W. Mountain Ave., Fort Collins, CO 80524
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Purchase required to access the interior; ice cream prices typical of local shop.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat Old Town commercial street; interior accessible at ground floor level
Equipment
Photos OK
Site of Dinnebeck's Cafe (est. 1920) · Former Old Town morgue in underground space · Fort Collins Old Town commercial core
Dinnebeck's Cafe opened at 125 W. Mountain Ave. in Fort Collins in 1920, the same year Prohibition took effect nationwide. The building became a local fixture under Charlie Dinnebeck's ownership over the following decades. A 1927 family photograph of Dinnebeck was found and is now framed and displayed inside the current Walrus Ice Cream shop, giving the site an unusual visual tether to its early history.
Below the street-level commercial space, the underground area once functioned as the Old Town morgue — a detail documented in the Fort Collins Coloradoan and picked up by regional history reporters. Fort Collins' early municipal infrastructure often doubled up uses in the dense Old Town block structure, and morgue space beneath commercial buildings was not unusual in pre-automobile frontier towns. A jail cell is also reported in the underground area, associated in the lore with the death of a gambler named Jack Cassidy.
Walrus Ice Cream, the current occupant, has leaned into the building's history. Staff are familiar with both Dinnebeck's provenance and the underground space's history, and the Dinnebeck photo serves as a conversation piece for customers who ask. The NoCo Style publication ran a detailed account of the building's layered history in September 2024.
Sources
The Walrus Ice Cream building supports two distinct ghost traditions. The more documented centers on Charlie Dinnebeck, the cafe's original owner, whose identity was pinned through a 1927 family photo that current staff display in the shop. Incidents attributed to Dinnebeck include cabinets breaking without cause, windows shattering, and — in an era before the current shop's focus — beer keg handles being pulled by no visible hand. The physical evidence of his identity through the photograph is unusually concrete for ghost lore, making this one of the better-grounded named-entity traditions in Fort Collins.
The second tradition involves Jack Cassidy, described as a gambler who died in the jail cell in the underground area below the building. Cassidy receives less documentation in current sources than Dinnebeck; the 2017 CSU Collegian article is the primary text placing him at this location. The connection between the morgue space and either apparition is not explicitly established in the sources — the two traditions appear to have developed separately and been associated with the building's layered underground history over time.
Notable Entities
Walrus Ice Cream operates in the building formerly occupied by Dinnebeck's Cafe, which opened in 1920. A framed 1927 family photo of Charlie Dinnebeck is on display in the shop. Staff are familiar with the building's history, including the underground space once used as a morgue and the jail cell below where gambler Jack Cassidy reportedly died.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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