Wolpert Mansion

Located within walking distance west of the museum is the infamous Riverdale Road. Nestled the quiet neighborhoods of Thornton, Colorado and Adams County, Colorado, this 11-mile stench of road has become infamous for home to many different haunts including hangings, burnings, ghost children, a ghost Camaro, the jogger of Jogger's Hill, and a supposed “Hell’s Gate” somewhere along the road. As the Denver Library put it “Perhaps the story that yields the most intrigue involves a mansion owner who went insane and set his home aflame with his family inside. The family perished in the fire...and the man was never seen again.” This mansion owner was named David Wolpert with his mansion being located on 90th and Riverdale (now the site of the Pelican Ponds Open Space, just south of here).

Wolpert was presumably born in Ohio in 1834. In 1859, he moved west to due the gold discoveries in the Rockies, he first traveled to New Mexico and then Colorado, visiting Pikes Peak, South Park and Fairplay. Wolpert and a party of sixteen men then crossed the mountains to Blue River, near Breckenridge where they began prospecting; but being driven out by the Indians, the entire party returned to Pikes Peak, with Wolpert leaving towards Denver, He followed the Platte River north nine miles, and, on a piece of land he patented in the late 1850’s, he built a house and farm in 1864. Wolpert married Catherine Henderson on January 20, 1864. The couple had two daughters, Lucille and Mary, and a son David. David Wolpert, Sr. died on October 21, 1909, at the age of 75, and Catherine died in 1915. The couple is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

After his death, it has been said that the mansion was a drover's inn for cowboys, a gambling den in the 1920’s, a house of prostitution, and a race-horse ranch. It is said one owner became drunk and lost the mansion in a card game, and there have also been rumors of murder occurring on the land. At around 1 a.m. on November 28, 1975, the home went up in flames, leaving only remnants of walls of the main building plus a smaller structure in the rear. Today, the property remnants appear to have been removed.