Colorado Springs is no a stranger to folklore, the macabre or historic hauntings. And the Pikes Peak region has hosted famous folks associated with fabricated fear, trickery and Halloween. Let’s take a shallow grave … err, dive … into the creep and meet some of the famous people from the Springs who are eerily connected to the spooky season. This is your guide to celebrities of Colorado Springs, Halloween edition.
Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney’s ability to transform himself using makeup techniques earned him the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Faces.” Today he is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, grotesque and afflicted characters, and for his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. Chaney’s work in silent films, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), is still celebrated today.
Prior to his stardom on the silent screen, Chaney was raised by deaf parents in Colorado Springs. His maternal grandfather, Jonathan Ralston Kennedy, founded the Colorado School for the Education of Mutes — now the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind — in 1874, located on Knob Hill. With parents lacking auditory ability, Chaney communicated in pantomime, prepping him to be a professional performer.
“Famously, ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’ had very few words to say about his private life,” says Leah Davis Witherow, curator of history for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. “Chaney once [said] he generated more publicity being silent about his past. How appropriate, considering he was a world-famous silent film star. Although he may not have talked much about it, Lon Chaney’s roots in the Pikes Peak Region ran deep — his experiences growing up here influenced his choice of career and shaped his talent.”
Chaney’s son — born Creighton Tull Chaney, but professionally credited as Lon Chaney Jr. — also held a career as an actor and is most famous for The Wolf Man (1941) during Universal Picture’s popular run of monster films in the 1930s through ‘50s.
Lon Chaney died on Aug. 26, 1930, in Los Angeles from a throat hemorrhage and subsequent infection caused by an artificial snowflake during the production of the film Thunder. The majority of Thunder is lost, with only half a reel of footage surviving, and Chaney’s remains are interred in an unmarked crypt.
Nikola Tesla
When Nikola Tesla arrived in Colorado Springs in 1899, he was a famous scientist on the forefront of energy transmission. The Serbian American inventor was drawn to the region’s frequent lightning storms. Tesla built an experimental science station in the Knob Hill neighborhood and conducted experiments for less than a year into January 1900, according to journal entries. Tesla’s work in Colorado Springs led him to develop machines that measured lightning strikes, and his breakthrough achievement: a magnifying transmitter.
In the Knob Hill laboratory, Tesla experimented with electricity and produced artificial lightning. Thunder from released energy was heard in Cripple Creek, 15 miles away on the other side of Pikes Peak. Light bulbs within 100 feet of his laboratory would glow when turned off — as would butterflies fluttering nearby, with halos of Saint Elmo’s fire, a meteorological phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by ionization of the atmosphere around a conductor. To locals, it must have looked as though Victor Frankenstein moved into town.
“While here, Tesla lived in room 207 at the Alta Vista Hotel. He chose this room because the number was divisible by three, one of Tesla’s many superstitions and preferences,” Witherow says. “Also a germaphobe, Tesla requested 18 clean towels a day from the hotel. Local newspapers reported his presence with keen interest: Mr. Tesla is one of those men of great genius whom the world calls hard to fathom…”
The experimental lab was demolished in 1904. Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel on Jan. 7, 1943, 43 years to the day after his final journal entry in Colorado Springs. A medical examiner determined the cause of death was a clot in a blood vessel of the heart. His body was cremated, and his ashes are kept in a golden sphere in Belgrade, Serbia.
Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
Her beehive hair was high, her necklines low. Cassandra Peterson, “The Queen of Halloween,” best known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark attended Ivywild Elementary and graduated from Palmer High School. After school, she helped with her family’s costume shop. Later, Peterson worked in Vegas as a showgirl, appeared as such in a small role in the 007 film Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and went on a date with the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Elvira became a prominent presence in pop culture, curating tantalizing terror by hosting macabre television programs with witty wisecracks while dressed in sensual, gothic garb.
“Cassandra’s aunts ran a costume shop in Ivywild called Peterson’s Partyland,” says Witherow. “Her mother worked there as well, and Cassandra recalled, ‘I would pick out whatever was the hot costume that year — Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeanie, Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke — and my mom would make one in my size.’ If you visit The Story of Us exhibit at the Pioneers Museum, you will see a life-size version of Elvira wearing her campy Mistress of the Dark costume, in addition to her Palmer High School yearbook opened to the page containing a very innocent-looking student.”
Brad Dourif, aka Chucky
The private preparatory Fountain Valley School was the academic home of Brad Dourif, an engaging actor known as the voice of Chucky, the possessed murder doll of the Child’s Play film franchise. Dourif built a performance career playing sociopaths or characters of a similar strain, including a violent telepath in the ‘90s series Star Trek: Voyager. As the “Gemini Killer” in The Exorcist III, Dourif acted across from George C. Scott in the climax, monologuing menacingly in a straitjacket. His breakout performance, portraying the vulnerable, sympathetic Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) — alongside Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito — earned him a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Award, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Charles Schulz
On a lighter note — to push aside bad dreams and nightmares — the cartoonist behind the 1966 television prime-time special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown lived in the Old North End of Colorado Springs in 1951. Before his Peanuts fame, Charles Schulz painted an 8-by-10-foot nursery mural for his daughter, Meredith, in that humble bungalow. The depiction included prototypes of classic characters featured in his comic strip and television specials, including Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Patty. Subsequent homeowners Polly and Stanley Travnicek were made aware of the mural and carefully stripped away paint with cotton balls and sanding liquid until uncovering the historic work.
When the Travniceks learned of Schultz’s retirement, they donated the mural to the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California, in 2001. The original nursery mural remains on permanent display at the Schulz Museum. The museum opened The Spark of Schulz: A Centennial Celebration and others exhibits commemorating Schulz’s creativity and cultural impact. The late illustrator would have turned 100 on Nov. 26, 2022.
You might say Charles Schultz is one of the most famous celebrities of Colorado Springs. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown continues to air and stream in homes during the Halloween season, and many listen to the soundtrack by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi — particularly “The Great Pumpkin Waltz.” And A Charlie Brown Christmas remains a top holiday classic. To find your own great pumpkin, check out a list of the best pumpkin patches in the Pikes Peak region in 17 Pumpkin Patches in Colorado Springs to Get You Pumped for Fall
The Story of Us
You can discover more about these spooky celebrities and other people, famous and not, who have helped shape Colorado Springs at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. If you only check out one exhibit, make it The Story of Us: The Pikes Peak Region from A–Z.
“The Story of Us exhibit is an innovative, place-based, storytelling tool,” says Leah Davis Witherow, curator of history for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. “We launched The Story of Us in 2017 to share our region’s unique history and culture. Paired with a traditional gallery exhibit, the online platform allows users explore stories on the landscape in order to learn about the people, places and events that have defined our history and shaped our community.”
Read More
Touring the Haunted History of Colorado Springs
The Haunted Arby’s: A Side of Spooky
RIP: Rest in Peace, Emma Crawford
