October presents a unique opportunity: You can hang out in graveyards and no one will think you’re a weirdo. We have no issues if you want to use your Halloween immunity to look for the ghosts and goblins that frequent Colorado’s burial sites—respectfully, of course. But while you’re there, might we also suggest paying homage to the greats of Colorado past.

Published in September, What Lies Beneath Colorado: Pioneer Cemeteries and Graveyards traces the history of the state through the people who reside six feet under it. Durango resident Eilene Lyon presents an exhaustive catalog of cemeteries, using the illustrious, the anonymous, and the nefarious to tell our state’s story. Here, we dug up five grave sites from its pages that are worth a visit.

Horace A.W. Tabor (1830-1899) & Baby Doe Tabor (1854-1935)

Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery, Wheat Ridge

Photo By Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Horace A.W. Tabor struck it rich in Colorado, his Matchless Mine near Leadville helping the silver baron become one of the richest people in the state by the late 1870s. However, his most precious find was his dear Elizabeth—though his first wife, Augusta, might disagree. The lovebirds unleashed a Vanderpump-level scandal after Horace left his wife for the much younger divorcee, who was nicknamed “Baby Doe.” The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the government to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver a month, plunged the couple into poverty. Horace died in 1899, and Baby Doe moved to a shack on the Matchless, where she froze to death 36 years later. Fortunately, the soulmates were reunited under a headstone at Mount Olivet.

Isom Dart (1849-1900)

Cold Spring Mountain, Moffat County

Perhaps no other burial site is shrouded in more lore than Isom Dart. While everyone acknowledges he was an early Black cowboy of the West, that’s where the agreement ends. Some say Dart was an outlaw, born Ned Huddleston in Arkansas. When he moved out West, he changed his name, picked up rodeoing, and started stealing horses. Others argue Ned Huddleston never existed and that Dart was born in Texas, bought a ranch near modern-day Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge, and ran a respectable cattle business. Whether he was a rustler or well-regarded cowboy, Dart met his demise at the hands of a hired gunman—sent either to chase Dart off of his land or to put an end to his rustling, depending on who you believe. Today, he’s buried inside a log-post fence on private land on Cold Spring Mountain.

Caroline Westcott Romney (1840-1916)

Fairmount Cemetery, Denver

Best known as an early journalist, Romney was a native New Yorker who launched Durango’s first paper and ran gangs out of town with her unflinching editorials. In addition to being an adept editor who started multiple newspapers in Colorado and New Mexico, Romney also introduced 14 inventions, including a foot warmer for cars, at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. But her biggest girl boss move? Making up a husband named John Romney and then killing him off. Being a widow granted her the freedom to pursue her countless career aspirations—a liberty unmarried women didn’t have. Alexa, play “Who Run the World (Girls).”

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs

Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images

Emily Dickinson’s childhood BFF, Helen Hunt Jackson started writing poetry after the early deaths of her husband and two kids. She often suffered from poor health and moved to Colorado in 1875 on her doctor’s orders (no better cure than a little mountain air, right?). There, a speech by Chief Standing Bear led her to become a passionate advocate for Native American rights. She penned A Century of Dishonor, a scathing deep dive into the federal government’s mistreatment of Native Americans, and Ramona, a novelization of the abuses Native American communities in California faced. Her novel became widely popular but not exactly for the reason she had hoped: Readers were moved by the romance, not the hardships of the Native American characters.

When Jackson died of stomach cancer in 1885, her husband had her buried at Inspiration Point in South Cheyenne Canyon overlooking Colorado Springs, but her grave was so popular that her family moved her to Evergreen Cemetery so her many visitors wouldn’t disturb the canyon. Now, she lies near fellow poet Francis Henry Maynard, the wordsmith behind all-time banger “Streets of Laredo.”

Captain Silas S. Soule (1838-1865)

Riverside Cemetery, Denver

Best known to history as the man who testified against John Chivington—the colonel who ordered the slaying of more than a hundred peaceful Native Americans at the Sand Creek Massacre—Captain Silas S. Soule was raised to do good. His family helped found Lawrence, Kansas, was an active part of the Underground Railroad, and worked with famed abolitionist John Brown. In fact, following Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, Soule pretended to be drunk in order to get arrested and spring two of Brown’s men from jail.

In Colorado, he took part in peace talks with Native Americans and, when he saw that the tribes at Sand Creek were peaceful, defied Colonel Chivington’s orders and refused to attack. He later wrote a letter detailing the truth of the massacre and testified against Chivington during the Army’s investigation. Likely due to his condemnation of Chivington, Soule was killed in 1865, only three weeks after his wedding.