There are many family-oriented activities available on or around Halloween. Denver haunted houses, trick-or-treating, parties, etc. are all par for the course. Perhaps the greatest seasonal activity for a family with young children, however, is to attend a corn maze.

Children are encouraged to wear their Halloween costumes to haunt the maze as families attempt to find their way through it. Be sure children wear sufficiently warm clothing under their costumes, as it is often cold during this season.

A good corn maze will be somewhat challenging to navigate. It is traditional for there to be several ancillary program features.

Snacks such as kettle corn, cider, hot cocoa, caramel apples, roasted nuts, etc. are common delicacies. Some corn maze operators include an expanded menu to also embrace Oktoberfest. Bratwurst, beer and pretzels are therefore often included as menu choices.

Usually, carnival games are also offered attractions. These come in the form of ring toss games, bouncing tents, miniature bowling, etc. It is common to also see seasonal games such as bobbing for apples, costume contests, pumpkin carving and the like.

Remember to bring a camera to capture treasured images of your children playing, as well as walking through the maze. Many operators offer aerial-view maps of a given corn maze, in order to assist you on your journey. Even so, a good maze can prove difficult to complete. Therefore, there are usually several “emergency” exits along the way. Restroom facilities are normally provided in the form of portable toilets.

Clearly, there is a lot more to a corn maze than one might think. The veritable plethora of activities and treats available are sure to please all members of the family.

The Asylum Haunted House is located in the Boondocks Fun Center at 11425 Community Center Drive in Northglenn, Colorado and is among the top haunted houses in the area.  The staff at The Asylum Haunted House can be contacted by phone at 303-355-FEAR, or by e-mail at info@getscared.com.  You can also visit The Asylum Haunted House online at www.getscared.com.  First-time visitors should review the frequently asked questions section of the website, in order to familiarize themselves with all pertinent rules, safety information, etc.

Parking is provided free of charge in the Boondocks Fun Center parking lot.  Forms of payment accepted are cash, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Admission to the Boondocks Fun Center is free, as always, however, you do have to pay for attractions if you decide to play.  Hours of operation are Sunday through Thursday from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM and Friday and Saturday from 7:00 PM to Midnight.  While there is no age limit to enter The Asylum Haunted House, due to the graphic nature of the layout, it is not recommended for small children.  The house is handicap accessible. Photography and video recording are not permitted in The Asylum Haunted House.  The layout and features of the house are different every year.

There are live animals, reptiles and insects incorporated into the layout.  Visitors should not attempt to touch or otherwise handle them.  There are other hazards incorporated into the layout.  However, if you walk where directed you will make it through without incident.

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door at Denver Haunted Houses for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door at Denver Haunted Houses on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of “puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.”

However, there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, where trick-or-treating may have developed independent of any Irish or British antecedent. The custom of wearing costumes and masks at Halloween goes back to Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, In Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white. Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe’en, makes no mention of ritual begging in the chapter “Hallowe’en in America.” Kelley lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town with about 4,500 Irish immigrants, 1,900 English immigrants, and 700 Scottish immigrants in 1920. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating. The editor of a collection of over 3,000 vintage Halloween postcards writes,

There are cards that mention the custom or show children in costumes at the doors of Denver Haunted Houses, but as far as we can tell they were printed later than the 1920s and more than likely even the 1930s. Tricksters of various sorts are shown on the early postcards, but not the means of appeasing them.

Thus, although a quarter million Scots-Irish immigrated to America between 1717 and 1770, the Irish Potato Famine brought more than a million immigrants to North America in 1845–1849, and British and Irish immigration to America peaked in the 1880s, ritualized begging on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs. Another isolated reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.

The earliest known use in print of the term “trick or treat” appears in 1927, from Blackie, Alberta, Canada:

Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front of Denver Haunted Houses demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.

Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearances of the term in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.

(Source: wikipedia.org)

One article dated May 28, 1881, gave an explanation of a lawsuit against Idaho Springs Mayor Thomas B. Bryan.  “Mayor Bryan has laid the foundation of the large bath house, and is tunneling and sinking for the water that is to supply the bath.”  This bathhouse was designed to service his Colorado haunted house.

This area of Idaho Springs is located on a hot springs, which had been run for years by a popular citizen of the town, and purportedly used by such luminaries as Frank and Jesse James, Walt Whitman, Horace Tabor, and Sarah Bernhardt.  By claiming to mine for gold while actually tapping into the sulfur springs, Bryan was essentially stealing another man’s livelihood.  There followed a lawsuit in which Bryan was the loser.

The present owner on this Colorado haunted house has not run across “her,” but a guest at dinner, a prominent and quite well-known painter, did see and hear a figure in the dining room one evening, who told him her name was Mary.  Adjourning to the solarium for coffee, the guest saw her there as well.  Other guests have felt cool breezes in the music room, with no open doors or windows.  Mary is possibly the daughter of Bryan, but that remains an unverified fact, as she was always referred to as Miss Bryan during her life.  Other occurrences in this Colorado haunted house include the sound of “Mary” crying, footsteps during the night, lights turning on and off, and objects being moved without explanation.

Although there is evidence of human habitation in this area for thousands of years, it was in the mid-1800s that the first Europeans came upon the desert ruins.  The name “Hovenweep,” Paiute/Ute for “deserted valley,” was adapted by pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson in 1874, and quite accurately describes the desolation of these canyons and mesas wherein the ancient farmers cultivated and irrigated their crops.  Though we know the natives in this Four Corners area as Anasazi, they are more accurately called Ancestral Puebloans, and the fascinating thing about them, besides their mysterious exodus, is the variation in the composition of their living areas.  While the better known Mesa Verde tribe built into the cliffs, the Hovenweep people, also members of the Mesa Verde tribe, had a penchant for building towers and massive castle-like buildings with shapes that varied, including square rectangle, round, D-shaped and horseshoe.  The remains of these structures are now Colorado haunted houses.

The Hovenweep area began with small, scattered units, pueblos built on the mesa around 1100, and evolved after 1200 into sophisticated masonry-walled pueblos, with large structures interspersed, often at the head of the canyons.  Water was the life-blood of the Ancestral Puebloans, which, in this dry, arid climate, they diverted into the fields to grow food, using innovative farming methods like terrace farming and irrigation.  Modern scientists examined tree rings from the logs used for construction in the area and found that from 1250 to 1300 there was a severe drought, which likely caused a large migration of the Puebloan people.  Additionally, there now are no trees here, although logs were a corporate part of the construction.  This indicates a depletion of a vital building material and fuel.  Not everyone left however, as they are believed to be the ancestors of the modern tribes of the Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo.

It is widely believed that the Hovenweep Castle is an ancient haunted houses, cursed by the spirits of the Ancestral Puebloans who were forced to migrate during the drought of 1250 – 1300.  Modern-day visitors have reported hearing Native American drumming in the distance.  Others have reported smelling the odor of sage smoke, often used in Puebloan ceremonies.  In a sense, the Hovenweep Castle is one of the most interesting and unusual Colorado Haunted Houses.

What a cool haunt! I don’t know if all the rumors of the ghostly activity inside the actual warehouse are true, but certainly the haunt itself held up to its expectations. It is a dark haunt. Not literally speaking, but there is a very ominous feeling about the warehouse itself. The setting is awesome! As you walk into the warehouse to get in the cue line, the scene reminded me a lot of the first “Blade” movie where the vampires are all dancing to their techno Goth like music in an abandoned warehouse under showers of blood. Unfortunately, there were no vampires slaughtering all of us unsuspecting victims, but there was a hot Goth chick doing a hot dance to entertain you while standing in line! There also a freak show, but I will let the other critics mention something about that and cut to the chase.

With a name like the 13th floor, I was really curious as to how they were going to pull that off and make it feel like you’re climbing multiple floors. Well… they did it! You step into an enclosed elevator room and suddenly you feel like
you really are in an old rickety elevator that could drop at any second. The actors here did a terrific job making you believe that you could too. Once on the 13th floor, the scenes began to unfold. One thing that really stood out in
this particular haunt, were the props looked very movie quality real. There was a severed head in a container that was awesome! I thought the coolest gag, which I am sure all the critics also dually noted, was the ghostly bride. She
slithered in and out of the rooms in the dark and was really creepy the way she moved. Just like if you were to really see a ghost, she was there for a split second, and gone the next.

The acting I felt was fantastic. The little scenes I thought were great! The smoke was perfect! I like it when you can’t see much in front of your face and don’t know exactly where you are going. Over all, I really loved this entire haunt. I felt it really held up to all the others that have had the benefit of running for years. I can’t wait to see the adjustments made and how much further it goes in years to come.

Rumor has it that Alma Osgood at one time may have had a love affair with one of the Italian artists she had imported to paint inside the mansion, and that and that her husband, John Cleveland Osgood, had him shot for allegedly cheating in a poker game.  No real evidence documents this story, however there is a secret passageway through the castle from the guest quarters, which comes out very near Alma’s private suite in this Colorado haunted house.

The biggest black mark on Osgood’s character was his reaction to the horrific Ludlow Massacre in 1914, where a camp of striking miners and their wives were gunned down and burned out by men in the employ of the mine owners.  As spokesman for the coal operators of Colorado, he loquaciously blamed the victims for the problem, although he was fully aware of, and had participated in, the evil conditions the miners endured.  Later testimony disproved his claims, but perhaps his sympathies had been blunted by the desertion of his adored wife, and later the betrayal of the miners in walking out of his mines.

Most prevalent is the smell of cigar smoke, particularly around the pool room area, when smoking is not allowed, of course, in the Colorado haunted house.  Osgood was a perpetual cigar smoker.  Other guests have reported being touched while sleeping, or of smelling the scent of fresh lilacs in mid-winter.  Housekeepers report seeing people reflected in mirrors in empty rooms and of footprints on clean floors.  With its many unsolved mysteries, the Redstone Castle is among the greatest Colorado haunted houses.

Perusing a book titled “Journeys,” the story of the Sisters of Mercy written by Kathleen O’Brien, one finds an account of the departure of Father Jean Baptiste Francolon in 1900.  The Mother Superior, Mother Baptist, harshly accused the Father of accosting children.  She then threatened to expose him.  In response, the Father cursed her, telling her that she would be dead within a year’s time.

Apparently the accusation reached the public ear and Angus Gillis, driving a wagon in town, came across an angry crowd headed for the Colorado haunted house.  Driving ahead, Angus warned the Father, secreted him under a blanket in his wagon, and drove him to Colorado Springs where Father Francolon left abruptly for Europe.

A sad and creepy postscript to this tale is that in August of 1901, the very next year, Mother Baptist died quite horribly in a train accident while traveling from Durango to Silverton.

A less substantiated incident is that of a nun, Henrietta, who hanged herself, supposedly because she was carrying the child of Father Francolon, who refused to give up his priesthood and marry her.

It seems that Sister Henrietta never left Miramont Castle, a Colorado haunted house, and is still seen occasionally.  There also is a little girl on the fourth floor, but who she is remains a mystery, although one psychic thought she might have been a patient who died there.  A transparent Victorian couple has been seen on the grand staircase, once by the president of the Manitou Historical Society, and a Victorian widow sometimes appears in the mirrors in the mother’s room.  A Native American is another regular visitor.

Phenomena are so common that there are books on the third level for visitors to relate any odd occurrences that they encounter.  And the entries are many.  With its many unsolved mysteries, the Miramont Castle is among the greatest Colorado haunted houses.

Here is a video we found on You Tube that shows a real ghost crying.  For more haunted videos, see ghost activity in a haunted house and the asylum in Denver.

There are several things that should be taken into consideration when young children go trick-or-treating.  The primary concern is safety, but comfort should also be kept in mind.  To begin with, an adult should accompany young children.  If a large group of young children is trick-or-treating together, be sure to bring several adults along.

Children choose their costumes based upon any number of criteria, such as how popular it is, how scary it is, etc.  There are other factors that should be considered by the child’s parents.  It is often cold on Halloween night, so be sure that a costume is either warm enough by itself, or that it is loose-fitting enough to accommodate a warm layer of clothing underneath it. 

Also, be sure that the costume does not obstruct the child’s view.  This is one of several safety considerations.  Inspect the costume to make sure that there are no parts that could act as a tripping hazard.  Likewise, see to it that any accessory items do not have sharp edges or points.

Visibility is important, as well.  Give each child a flashlight or glow stick so that motorists and other pedestrians can see them.  Each adult should also have a flashlight to help children find their way around large bushes, shrubs, etc.  It is also important to monitor the children when approaching darkened porches and doorways.  A good flashlight is invaluable in this application.

Finally, when you get home all items received must be inspected for tears in wrappers, pinholes and the like.  Instruct the children not to consume any of their candy or other treats until they have been looked through at home.  If you are at all uncertain about the safety of a given item, discard it.  It is better to be safe than sorry, especially if the children were trick-or-treating in a somewhat unfamiliar area. 

Halloween should be a fun and carefree holiday for children.  A small group of responsible adults can ensure the safety of the children and allow them to have a fun time.  Harmful incidents on or around Halloween are rare, and are often the stuff of urban legends.  Taking a few precautions will provide a comfortable level of safety for all those involved.