Mystery Location 9: July 17, 2016

The location is the Grant-Humphreys Mansion, 770 Pennsylvania St., Denver, Colorado.

Denver is known as the "Mile-High City."

It is where Albert E. Humphreys, who was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal that led to the election of Warren G. Harding, either shot himself, or was murdered, on May 5, 1927. He was upstairs in the gun room packing guns for a trip when he shot himself, or someone else shot him. Those who believe that he committed suicide say that it was because he had been summoned to appear for questioning regarding his significant role in the scandal.

The scandal got its name from a rock formation called Teapot Dome, or Teapot Rock, near an oilfield in Wyoming, which was at the center of the scandal. Before Watergate, the Teapot Dome scandal was considered the greatest scandal in the history of American politics.  

The house, which is in the neoclassical Beaux-Arts style, was built in 1902 by James Benton Grant, who came from Alabama to Denver. He lived in the home until his death in 1911 and his wife sold the mansion to Humphreys in 1917.

It is said that Humphreys haunts the mansion, which is supposed to have other ghosts as well. Some delusional ghost chasers claim that the other ghosts are the restless spirits of people once buried at Cheesman Park because a careless undertaker made a mess of things while moving the graves, but this makes no sense because Cheesman Park is several blocks from the house. If there are other ghosts, they are probably the spirits of members of the Grant and Humphreys families.

Note to April: How come you didn't know this one? Didn't you used to live in Denver?