Large cottonwood trees sigh as a breeze moves through them. The air is still, save for the mourning doves cooing softly, chattering over the marble slabs and statues that litter the ground. Like many other pioneers, Lester Drake came to Colorado seeking gold. Drake died in 1889 and was buried in Riverside in a grave marked with an ornate, solid sandstone carved reproduction of his cabin in Black Hawk. Dailey brought a printing press across the prairies to Denver in 1858 to start the News.
Riverside is indeed picturesque.
So much that one forgets the cemetery is sandwiched between the South Platte River, one of Public Service's coal burning power plants and, ironically, a Tombstone Pizza production plant. Born a slave, she earned her freedom and came to Central City in 1859 where she worked as a laundress. Still poor herself, Brown took in needy black people who also came to Colorado. She was made the first black member of the Colorado Pioneer Association which paid for her funeral. It has dead from the Civil War, the Korean War, World War I , II, and the Vietnam War.