Would you still visit a park if you knew thousands of bodies were below the surface?

“About 2,000 to 3,000 bodies are still said to be under the ground that we’re walking upon today,” said Rachel Strobolson with Denver Local Tours.

This is Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado. The park is popular for exercise, biking, hanging out with friends, you name it. However this same plot of land was formerly the site of Mount Prospect Cemetery. Adjacent to it used to be Mount Calvary Cemetery, which is now the Denver Botanic Gardens.

“By 1893, with pressure from the residents in the area, we basically asked the city to change it from a cemetery to a park” said Strobolson. “We hire one undertaker, his name was E.P. McGovern, to exhume and remove the bodies.”

Strobolson leads haunted history tours of this area in the fall. She said McGovern was paid $1.90 per casket. He started breaking up exhumed bodies into multiple children's caskets to make more money. But, the public was watching.

“They soon realize what E.P. McGovern and his crew were doing. They basically call for E.P. McGovern's head, they cancel the contract, and they never finish the job,” she said.

Meaning bodies were left behind. To this day, people are still finding them. In 2010 for example, four skeletons were found during irrigation work.

“People that live along the edges of the park report people tapping on the windows even though there's no tree branches that are there,” Strobolson said. “The bodies are still underneath us, and to think that we’re all picnicking, our dogs are running around, we’re all just hanging out here in the park, is so fascinating to me.”

The area’s past has been the inspiration for books and even a movie.

The sun has just risen over the mountains surrounding Maple Hill Cemetery in Dorset, Vermont, giving the headstones here a kind of warmth that only comes in late fall.

Some of these graves date back to the 1700s, and many are worn and covered in moss, unreadable and unrecognizable to most people who come here to visit loved ones.

But amidst the quiet, the sounds of scrubbing can be heard. Caitlin Abrams has just gotten to work.

"There's no shortcuts to any of this," Abrams said as she pumped the small handheld pressure washer she used to keep the marble stones wet.

Abrams is on a mission to restore old headstones.

After she scrapes and scrubs, she then covers the headstone in a restorative solution used by conservationists at Arlington National Cemetery. The labors of her work often take time to appreciate, as the cleaning solution slowly brightens up over the course of weeks and months.

"I like cleaning the ones you can't read because it feels like you're giving that person their name back and a piece of their story back," she said.

But while she is often out in these cemeteries alone, Abrams has amassed a massive following on the internet.

This 35-year-old, who once mocked TikTok, now has 1.8 million followers on the platform. She's known as "Manic Pixie Mom," and her videos have been viewed around the world.

"The nature of the [TikTok] algorithm is that someone might come across my video without being a follower and might not be interested in gravestones and now they are," she added.

But for Abrams, this isn't just about cleaning up some old headstones. In each video, she narrates a story about the life of the person whose headstone she's cleaning, bringing them back to life for the first time in centuries.

Abrams, a mother of two young kids herself, is drawn toward the stories of headstones belonging to children.

"It puts into perspective the difficulty of 19th and 18th-century life, for a lot of families, one disease would wipe out all five children in a matter of days or weeks," Abrams said.

Abrams sees each TikTok video as an opportunity to teach younger generations about the past.

"I do feel like I'm giving them a side of history you don't get in school," she said.

DES MOINES, Iowa —

Technology is bringing history alive as an Iowa cemetery.

Each headstone in a cemetery represents a life and a story. Sadly, many of those stories are being lost in time. But there's something new popping up in Des Moines' Woodland Cemetery that's bringing those stories back to life.

Modern-day QR codes dot dozens of historic grave sites all across Woodland Cemetery telling the stories of some of Des Moines' earliest residents.

"I got really taken by how early pioneers of Des Moines really did reflect world history," said Kristen Bartley.

Bartley was the creator of the mobile history tour.

"What I thought was going to be a project with maybe 35 to 40 stories became 71 stories," Bartley said.

Bartley created short videos using stories collected over the years by Iowa historians Archie Cook and Mike Rowley, and well-documented stories from descendants of people buried in Woodland.

"Not just about the more well-known names here in Des Moines, but about people you don't know so much," Bartley said.

Like Preston Jackson, a Black man born into the slave state of Kentucky. He was a veteran of the Mexican-American war and the Civil War.

Delia Ann Webster was imprisoned in Kentucky because she was helping enslaved people escape.

"When she got out of prison, she came and helped establish the underground railroad here in the state of Iowa," Bartley said.

Charles Nourse was Iowa's third attorney general.

"He was a young lawyer who came from Kentucky and began practicing law here and helped establish what is ultimately our legal system," said Mark Sherinian, a relative.

Nourse was also a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention.

"That was the convention that nominated Lincoln," Sherinian said.

Thousands of people are buried in Woodland Cemetery. Bartley said her passion project has barely scratched the surface.

"Knowing some of the history it's like... this needs to happen," Bartley said. "People need to know these stories."

Sherinian agrees and said it's important to remember where we come from.

"I've always said we stand on the shoulders of giants... and we need to remember who those giants are," Sherinian said.

It was funded by the Iowa Arts Council and Friends of Des Moines Parks.

Bartley is working to secure more funding to continue the project because there are thousands of more stories to be told. You can watch some of the videos on the Des Moines Parks and Rec YouTube page.

CINCINNATI — One of the city's oldest African-American Baptist churches in Cincinnati is taking on a major corporation.

Union Baptist Church filed a lawsuit against Fifth-Third Bank Thursday, accusing it of destroying a historic cemetery located in Madisonville.

Standing water covers the main roadway through the cemetery and toppled headstones are visible among graves on sloping hillsides.

“You can see how it's deteriorating clearly. Every time it rains, a little bit more of it washes away," attorney for Union Baptist Church John Stillpass said. "It’s just appalling is the only word. It’s just an outrageous, it's just an outrageous thing the community has to suffer the loss of this site."

Stillpass said Fifth-Third Bank built an office above the United American Cemetery in 2003 and the draining system it chose pushes water into the cemetery -- displacing headstones and washing away graves. He said he's been trying to get the bank to do something about it for more than two years.

He filed a lawsuit Thursday writing it is “...causing unforgivable dishonor and insult to the departed.”

The lawsuit states the United American Cemetery is the oldest African-American burial site in the state. The document also said that the site is the resting place of many prominent African Americans who were important to the historical development of the city of Cincinnati including leaders of the Underground Railroad, writers, politicians, business people, artists, civil rights leaders and Civil War veterans. The earliest legible tombstone was placed in 1832.

Prominent persons buried there include:

• William H. Beckley
• John Isom Gaine
• Priscilla Jane Thompson
• Frank A.B. Hall
• Horace Suddeth
• Jennie Jackson DeHart
• Isaac Nelson Ross
• Irvine Penn
• Phoebe Boots Allen
• Hentry Ellis
• Charles H. Thompson

The lawsuit accuses the bank of trespassing, causing a nuisance, desecration and abuse of a corpse. The church wants the bank to fix the problem and pay for restoration of the cemetery.
Complaint Union Baptist vs Fifth Third Bank by WCPO 9 News on Scribd

The bank sent WCPO 9 renderings of a project it plans to carry out to fix the issue.
Renderings of 5/3 Drainage Plan for Madisonville Facility by WCPO 9 News on Scribd

5/3 officials also sent this letter it sent to the cemetery owners Friday, stating it made an offer to help restoration:

WCPO Staff

WCPO Staff

The church’s attorney said due to a confidentiality agreement, he cannot reveal how much the bank offered the church but said it was less than half the estimated repair cost.

“We certainly have plans of what this cemetery can be if we can have the water redirected and we can get the funding to restore it to what it should be,” Stillpass said.

ANDERSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — On Tuesday, Hillcrest Cemetery started to get a bit of a face lift on behalf of the GE Veterans Network.

Over a four-day period -- more than 100 volunteers from GE will clean up the grounds, removing debris, cleaning headstones and planting flags.

Brian DeGennaro, the co-lead of the network, said the goal is to beautify the spot while also honoring men and women who put their lives on the line for our country.

"Cleaning up the tombstone areas and a lot of the tombstones have fallen over -- we're looking at putting them back up making sure that they are aligned,” he said. “Cleaning up some of the trees and brush around the area, just to really make it that kind of place that a veteran who served their nation deserves."

There are about 1,400 U.S. military veterans buried at Hillcrest -- spanning from the Civil War to the Vietnam War -- and about 95% of those buried veterans are African American.

GE Veterans Network, the GE Women’s Network and the GE African American Forum will work together during the four-day cleanup.