DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado is home to a handful of notable living and deceased celebrities. From cannibals to astronauts, this state holds over 100 years of history not only above ground, but also below.
You may recognize some of these names from Colorado or even world history.
Alferd Packer, the ‘Colorado Cannibal’
Commonly known as the “Colorado Cannibal,” Alfred Packer received his name from admitting to eating five men after heavy snow trapped his group in the mountains. According to the Colorado Virtual Library, Packer admitted to killing one person out of self-defense and claimed he found the rest of the bodies and ate them in order to not starve. He was sentenced to jail but escaped and was not found until nine years later. He spent 15 years in prison before moving to Denver and eventually dying in 1907.
Packer is buried in Littleton.
Adolph Coors, founder of Coors Brewing Company
Adolph Coors started out as a broke brewer’s apprentice in Germany before he moved to Golden and built the largest single-site brewery in the world to this day. He started Coors in 1873 and eventually passed in 1929. Raise a glass to the man who started Coors.
Coors is buried in Wheat Ridge.
Scott Carpenter, astronaut
The Colorado native was the fourth astronaut in the United States to fly in space and the second to ever orbit the Earth. Born in Boulder in 1925, he passed away in 2013 at 88 years old.
Carpenter rests in Steamboat Springs.
Helen Peters Nosworthy, ‘Mother of the Ouija board’
The Ouija board was referred to as a talking board until Helen Peters Nosworthy, said to be a medium, patented the new name in 1890. As the legend goes, Nosworthy asked the board what it would like to be called, to which it responded “O-U-I-J-A.” After asking the board what the name meant, it said “G-O-O-D L-U-C-K.”
She then went to the patent office to secure the name, but the patent would only be given if the board could guess its name. When Nosworthy asked the board, it revealed the name “Ouija.”
While Nosworthy wasn’t born in Denver, she lived in Denver for 44 years and was laid to rest in 1940 at Denver’s Fairmount Cemetery.
George William Ratterman, professional football quarterback
According to Ratterman’s obituary, he was a professional football player in the 1950s. He played for the Buffalo Bills, the New York Yanks of the NFL, the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in 1951 and the Cleveland Browns. He never played for a Denver team, but he spent time in Colorado before he passed.
In 2007, he was buried in Centennial.
Buffalo Bill Cody
Buffalo Bill Cody was iconic in the 1800s as an army scout and showman. However, he’s most well-known for his burial site.
This remains a controversy as it is rumored that people from Cody, Wyoming, may have switched his body out from his burial spot on Lookout Mountain. However, the Buffalo Bill Museum and many other sources deny this claim.
