Follow
This project is for those interred in the Mount Olivet Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Jefferson County, Colorado.
Mount Olivet Cemetery was dedicated on September 25, 1892, and is the final resting place for some 150,000. The cemetery features a number of mausoleums including the Madonna, Mother Cabrini, Christ The King, St. Francis of Assisi, Ascension, St. Anthony, Garden, Circle, and the Lake.
Among the people buried at Mount Olivet, over 7,000 were re-interments from the “Old” Calvary Cemetery. The 20-acre site was condemned in 1909 and sold back to the City and County of Denver. What was once the Catholic section of Calvary, is now the Denver Botanic Gardens.
Mt. Olivet Cemetery is part of the 440 acre farm purchased by Bishop Machebeuf, and his body was moved from its temporary resting place beneath St. Mary’s Academy to Mt. Olivet after the consecration of the cemetery in 1892. Bishop Machebeuf is entombed in the Gallagher Chapel with other bishops and archbishops.
Mount Calvary was the Roman Catholic section of Denver City Cemetery. In 1890 Denver was granted permission to use the cemetery lands for a park and the Diocese of Denver secured an injunction preventing enforcement of the order against their property. The last burial in Mount Calvary was in 1908. In 1891 Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge opened and many of the bodies from Mount Calvary were removed there. In 1950 the remaining 8,600 bodies were removed to Mount Olivet. Today Mount Calvary is the site of the Denver Botanic Gardens.
Notable Interments
- Francis X. Carey (1933-1982) - Astronaut
- Jerry Corbetta (1947-2016) - Musician
- William Gilpin (1813-1894) - 1st Governor of the Colorado Territory
- Matthew Joseph Kechter (1983-1999) - Killed at the Columbine High School Massacre
Links