The Wildly Interesting Story of Colorado’s Emma Crawford

Throughout the year, you'll find a number of festivals all across the state of Colorado, and, for first-timers, some of them are likely surprisingly bizarre. What's more bizarre is that the odd festivals like Mike the Headless Chicken Festival, Frozen Dead Guy Days, and the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Parade all came about because of true events.

Read More: LOOK: Estes Park Colorado’s First Frozen Dead Guy Days |

Today, the name Emma Crawford is synonymous with her namesake festival, but the events that led to its creation are what many would consider to be stranger than fiction.

Who Was Colorado's Emma Crawford?

Emma Crawford was born on March 24, 1863, in Massachusetts but relocated to Manitou Springs with her mother in an attempt to recover from an illness now speculated to have been tuberculosis.

Get our free mobile app

Crawford was known as a talented pianist with a love of the outdoors and, against her mother's will and knowledge at the time, climbed Manitou Springs's Red Mountain despite her failing health, even leaving a scarf tied to a tree to prove it.

Unfortunately, Emma Crawford passed away on December 4, 1891, but it would be the events that followed her death that would become the stuff of legends.

Colorado's Emma Crawford + the Bizarre Events that Followed Her Death

Because of Emma's love of Red Mountain and fear of cemeteries, it was her wish to be buried on the mountain. However, after her fiancé attempted and failed to obtain the proper permits to bury her body there, it is speculated that he bypassed the law and did it anyway.

This became an issue when construction began on the Manitou Incline, prompting Emma's fiancé to relocate her remains. However, shortly after the relocation took place, a pair of young boys found a skull that was later determined to have belonged to the deceased Crawford.

Following this gruesome discovery, a bag of human bones and the handle of a coffin were found near a Manitou Springs home, also determined to have belonged to Emma.

Fortunately, it was reported in 1929 that Emma Crawford's remains would be relocated to a cemetery but the events leading up to this point would never be forgotten and are currently being memorialized each year with the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Parade.