Last year was the first iteration of what promises to be an annual spooky-season favorite for Denverites. Storm says it started as an idea born of the team wanting to share some of the oddities in the museum’s collection — the sort of things that don’t get brought out much or at all, but are fascinating and fully appropriate for a celebration of creepy stuff from Colorado’s past.
“We have a lot of weird stuff,” Storm laughs. “And I’ll be honest, museum people are also just weird — wonderfully so, but a little odd. So we all have our favorite strange stuff in the museum. Our collections director, for example, loves our mountain man dentures. I love the nuclear stuff, as a 20th-century historian, what with our history of Rocky Flats. And most of us have a favorite creepy doll, because we have so many creepy dolls in our collection.”
Which only stands to reason, given how far back History Colorado’s own history goes. “We were started in 1879 by the State legislature to preserve the stories of the people of Colorado,” Storm says. “That was only three years after gaining statehood. So over the years, you can imagine just how much stuff — including some seriously weird stuff —we’ve been able to preserve.”
The initial idea was a small event, maybe over lunchtime. “But then someone pointed out that the date we were considering was on the same weekend as the Oddities and Curiosities Expo at the Convention Center, and it sort of blew up from there,” Storm says. “We ended up deciding to do it on an evening and make an event of it.” (The dates for Creeporado and the Oddities Expo don’t line up this year, the latter not taking place until the weekend of October 4-5.)
The day before that inaugural Creeporado, History Colorado had sold around 200 tickets. “We were so excited,” recalls Storm. “We were like, ‘200 tickets? This is amazing!’ And then we woke up the next morning, and had sold almost 900. We immediately went from super excited to sheer panic. We hadn’t prepared for that many people.”
Still, History Colorado staff pulled out all the stops to make sure they could handle the hosting of that many visitors. “It ended up being a really fun night, but this year, we want to be sure that everyone has a chance to see everything,” Storm promises. Thus, the timed-entry ticketing, which will spread out the crowds for all the frightening fun. The evening will also be split up so that the first 90 minutes are specifically kid-friendly, with creepy crafts stations for the under-ten set.
“But we’re also zhuzhing it up the other way, too,” Storm says. “Turning our research center into the ‘Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll’ space that will be strictly 18-plus, where we can bring out some of our racier collections.” She mentions items like cocaine containers from back when it was a common ingredient and not an illicit drug; multiple forms of historical contraception and racy postcards from the past. “And the rock ‘n’ roll we’re just throwing in for fun.”
Speaking of music, Creeporado will also welcome back the band that played last year: Ghosts of Matchless Mine. “They’re sort of a dark indie/folk trio to set the mood,” Storm says. “And we’re also doubling the number of bars we’ll have, and keeping our cafe open, so visitors will have lots to do while enjoying the live music.”
Other highlights include a Makers Space where visitors can create their own crime dioramas, along with the unique opportunity to explore the History Colorado exhibitions at night, and shop for spooky goods at the Night Market.
But perhaps the main event of the evening is a scavenger hunt that will take participants all over the museum to help Colorado legend and Creeparado mascot Mike the Headless Chicken find his head. Mike was a chicken back in mid-1940s Fruita, Colorado, that lived for 18 months after he was beheaded. Instead of becoming dinner, he became an American sensation, touring the country, and still holds the record for “longest surviving chicken without a head” according to Guinness World Records, and an annual festival in his honor is still held in his hometown.
Storm says that the hope is that people come out not only for Creeporado and its unique offerings, but also to enjoy what may well be their first handshake experience with History Colorado as an institution.
“Exit surveys from last year told us that over 90 percent of attendees were visiting the museum for the first time,” says Storm. “That’s exciting. History is for everybody. One of the things we lose when we disconnect from our history is a true sense of who we are as individuals and as a culture. And there’s always something that sparks someone’s interest, and it’s not always the same things. Maybe it’s the old crime ledgers that we have from the early 1900s; maybe it’s the ‘shadowbox of shivs’ we have on display; maybe it’s our ghostly photo of a dead Victorian baby. There’s always something that will make someone take notice, and once we’ve captured their attention, it’s then that we can move into larger conversations about everything the museum has to offer.”