The Spirits of Capitol Hill

Posted: 05.07.2025 | Updated: 05.07.2025

The Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of the oldest and most popular areas in the Mile High City. It’s also home to some of the most elaborate — and haunted — houses in the entire city. 

To see some of the spookiest mansions for yourself, book a ghost tour with Denver Terrors tonight. 

Is Capitol Hill haunted?

Many believe that Capitol Hill is one of the most haunted areas in all of Denver. The neighborhood is filled with mansions and estates that have countless ghost stories attached to them. Some of the most haunted places in Capitol Hill include: 

• The Grant-Humphreys Mansion
• The Molly Brown House Museum
• Croke-Patterson Mansion

Where is Capitol Hill?

“Cap Hill,” as it’s called by locals, is in central Denver. Its four borders include:

• The northern boundary: Colfax 
• The eastern boundary: Downing Street 
• The southern boundary: 7th Avenue
• The western boundary: Broadway 

The Capitol Hill neighborhood is known for its many restaurants, shops, and thriving arts scene. It also houses the Colorado State Capitol building and several museums, including the History Colorado Center, Denver Art Museum, and Molly Brown House Museum.

First and foremost, however, Capitol Hill is a residential neighborhood. This goes back to the late 1800s, when the blossoming city’s elite wanted to build large homes close to the state capitol. 

This led to many mansions being built in one area, now called Millionaire’s Row. These old homes are where much of the spectral activity in Capitol Hill takes place. 

Grant-Humphreys Mansion

Some of the most spine-chilling stories come from the Grant-Humphreys Mansion. Located at 770 Pennsylvania Street, the 1902 home was originally built for the third Governor of Colorado, James Benton Grant, and his wife, Mary Goodell Grant, a socialite. In 1917, Mary sold the Beaux-Arts-style mansion to the Humphreys family. They were responsible for building Denver’s first airport (which had considerably fewer conspiracy theories than Denver’s current airport).

Over the years, the house continued to change hands between other families from Denver’s upper class until it was gifted to the Colorado Historical Society in the 1970s. Today, the estate hosts weddings and other events, and this is the environment where many of the ghostly experiences have been witnessed. 

One night, after cleaning up after a piano recital, the sales manager for the building went to turn off the lights. Before he did, he glanced over at a glass partition. He saw a little girl with blonde, curly hair staring back at him. 

Before he could wonder if a child was left behind, he blinked, and the child was gone. A few weeks later, a caterer came up to him, bewildered after seeing a little girl on-site. He described the exact child, down to the same pink dress the sales manager had seen. 

The house has been known to have other odd occurrences take place, like cold patches throughout the building, lights and fire alarms going off out of nowhere, and strange sounds and smells being experienced by guests and staff. Several people have reported having their hair tugged on, leading many to believe that this is the work of mischievous children playing pranks on people. 

The Molly Brown House Museum

Another haunted hot spot is the Molly Brown House Museum. While Molly Brown is considered one of Denver’s most impactful residents, her recognition shot up in 1997 after the release of a little movie called Titanic. In it, one of the main characters is Molly Brown (played by Kathy Bates), a “new-money” socialite who refused to look down on the lower class. 

At the end of the film, Brown escapes the sinking ship — just as she did in real life. In fact, it’s said that just before she left for her grand trip across the Atlantic, a medium told her, “I see great disaster in your future. Water, water everywhere.”

The medium was spot on, and this interaction led Brown to consult with mediums, tarot card readers, and psychics at her Denver home for the rest of her life. It should be stated that this wasn’t an unusual practice in the late 1800s — many people tried efforts to connect with the spirit world, especially those from the upper class.

These spiritual practices may have opened the door for ghosts to linger in the home long after Molly Brown left it. This includes Brown’s mother, Joanna, who enjoys moving objects around the house. Staff will leave a room for just a moment and come back to find something in an entirely different spot than before. 

Other ghosts believed to reside in the home include Brown’s nephew, who died from scarlet fever in the home at just 10 years old. A cat is also often spotted by guests, despite a cat not living on the premises.  

Croke-Patterson Mansion

The stunning red-sandstone mansion in Capitol Hill was first built in 1891 by Thomas B. Croke. However, despite spending a great deal of money on the home, Croke never actually lived in it. It’s said that Croke got bad feelings from the home and resorted to selling it to Thomas Patterson, who would go on to become a U.S. Senator. 

Patterson didn’t seem bothered by the home and moved his family into it. Over the next several decades, many Pattersons would take their final breaths within the mansion. This is why an estimated 12 Pattersons are said to haunt their former family home. 

Strange occurrences have been documented going back to the 1970s, when renovations were taking place within the home. Tools kept going missing, and work that the construction crew had completed seemed to disappear overnight. It got so bad that the company brought in dogs to watch over the site at night. 

Disturbingly, one dog got so spooked by something one night that it jumped from the third-floor balcony.

In recent years, the building has been converted into a hotel, called the Patterson Inn. Certain ghosts prefer certain rooms at the inn. For example, Thomas likes to spend his time in the pub, which used to operate as his smoking lounge. 

Thomas’s wife, Katherine, is said to hang out around the Biltmore room. If an unmarried couple is sleeping in the same bed in that room, they’ll be rudely awakened by the lights turning on and off in the middle of the night. This has only happened when an unmarried couple has been staying in the room, which hints that Katherine doesn’t approve of the arrangement. 

Haunted Denver

Some of the most haunted places in Denver are the remaining properties of Denver’s finest citizens. These include the homes of the “unsinkable” Molly Brown, who went on to become one of Denver’s biggest philanthropists, as well as the house of William Riddick Whitehead, an esteemed surgeon. 

Why have ghosts clung to these specific properties? Is it because they want to continue to enjoy the luxuries they experienced in life? Or are the rumors true — and these are the spirits of the people that the rich couldn’t help, including the patients Dr. Whitehead lost? To see the mansions and assess the situation for yourself, book a ghost tour with Denver Terrors. 

Want to learn about other haunted mansions around the U.S.? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to read about some of the grandest and most spectral-heavy houses around the United States. For more information about local haunted Colorado sites, be sure to check out our blog. 

Sources:

• https://www.uncovercolorado.com/activities/capitol-hill-neighborhood-denver/
• https://denverterrors.com/
• https://denverterrors.com/most-haunted-restaurants-in-denver/
• https://www.9news.com/article/life/holidays/halloween/these-capitol-hill-mansions-are-said-to-be-haunted/73-485684606
• https://www.historycolorado.org/ghm
• https://www.historycolorado.org/haunting-grant-humphreys
• https://kdvr.com/news/local/haunted-happenings-at-the-molly-brown-house-as-told-by-the-museum-director/
• https://303magazine.com/2021/10/we-tried-it-the-patterson-inn/