Woodpecker Hill

Greenwood Cemetery

Greenwood Pioneer Cemetery is the second known burial ground in Cañon City and the oldest extant, and is the final resting place for city fathers, one governor, railroad builders, orchard planters, miners, soldiers from both sides of the Civil War, members of fraternal societies such as the Freemasons and the Woodmen, and several hundred prisoners whose bodies went unclaimed.

Whether by accident or humor, the Confederate soldiers are buried in the northern section of the cemetery and the Union soldiers are buried in the southern.

There are two sections in the cemetery, the southwest and northwest corners, reserved for prisoners, the last of whom was buried during the 1970's. The southwest corner is known as Woodpecker Hill, and it got its name because the woodpeckers loved the bug-infested wooden grave markers that were used for the buried inmates.

Included are Danny Daniels, A.H. Davis, and Red Reiley, leaders of the 1929 riot, which resulted in their deaths as well as the deaths of eight correctional officers. William Cody Kelly and Luis J. Monge, the first and last to die in the state gas chamber, and Edward Ives, who survived his first hanging, but not his second, are also here.

Joe Arridy, a 23 year-old mentally challenged prisoner with an IQ of 46 and the mind of a five year-old, was wrongfully executed in the gas chamber on January 6, 1939. Arridy was tied to the killing of 15-year-old Dorothy Drain in Pueblo after he was picked up for vagrancy in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Drain was found to have been bludgeoned to death with a hatchet. After the Wyoming sheriff learned Arridy was from Pueblo, the sheriff got Arridy to confess to the killing, though it appears unlikely Arridy was in Pueblo at the time Drain was killed. Also, the hatchet that killed Drain was later discovered at the home of a man Arridy had never met. That man denied the killing.

Warden Roy Best took a liking to Arridy, and brought him to his house for Christmas in 1938 and gave him a toy train as a present. Warden Best, Prison Chaplain Albert Shaller, and Denver attorney Gail Ireland fought to the last minute for Arridy. The Colorado Supreme Court upheld Arridy’s conviction in a 3-2 decision and Governor Tellor Ammons called for the execution to continue. Chaplain Shaller said he would only deliver the Catholic Church’s Last Rites for a child.

Arridy requested just ice cream for his final three meals and reportedly stepped into the gas chamber still grinning like a little boy. It took over twenty minutes for Joe Arridy to be executed. Arridy had no relatives to claim his body after his execution so he was buried with other unclaimed inmates up on Woodpecker Hill.

On June 2, 2007, advocates for Arridy were given permission from the state for a proper tombstone to be placed on his grave.

Then on January 7, 2011, outgoing governor Bill Ritter awarded a posthumous pardon to Arridy, the first time the state of Colorado has ever pardoned anyone it has executed. "Pardoning Mr. Arridy cannot undo this tragic event in Colorado history. It is in the interests of justice and simple decency, however, to restore his good name," Ritter said in a statement.

Most of these graves are now marked by simple metal markers bearing only the inscription "CSP Inmate," and the later burials here have names and dates on the markers while a few families have provided regular stones. What is now the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility was once known as the Colorado State Penitentiary and "Old Max."

It is also believed that this cemetery is highly active with paranormal activity that includes cold spots, mysterious orbs, shadowy figures, and sounds of children laughing. The cemetery is only open from sunrise to sunset. Every summer the Prison Museum offers a ghost tour and Greenwood is on the list of some of Cañon City's "hot spots".