Adventuring with spirits is a thing in Victor, a city nearly 10,000 feet above sea level.

Mostly a solemn place, yet Sunnyside Cemetery can offer a most spirited experience and a peek at Victor’s famous people, ones who still exist on a certain underground level.

Alicia Petri leads Spirits of Sunnyside cemetery tours this summer. After all her research into the characters who live on in the cemetery, whose stories still offer local color, Petri adds her own flavor to the tours.

“Everyone is different,” she said. “But we have the usual suspects we talk about every year.”

Among the suspects is Marvin Bielz. 

“He painted every red, white and blue stake, found every veteran he could and marked their graves in the cemetery,” Petri said.

The metal entryway to Sunnyside is distinctive, crafted by another Sunnyside resident, Butch Ward of Cripple Creek.

During her tours, Petri lets loose some local scuttlebutt – the rivalry between the residents (alive) of Cripple Creek and Victor. She ought to know – she’s a native.

While only the Elks Club is left in Victor, Petri talks about the importance of other lodges during the old days, the Oddfellows, Moose and Eagles, each which had a favorite charity to help fund.

Not squeamish, Petri hopes that others aren’t as she relays the story about the guy whose body was blown up by grave snatchers.  Petri tells the whole story on the tour.

Petri highlights the grave of a soldier who fought for the South during the Civil War, adding that other soldiers’ bodies are buried in Mt. Pisgah in Cripple Creek.

“It amazes me that, thirty years after the war, they came out here looking for their fortunes,” she said. “There’s no documentation on any of them.”

The tours are informal and Petri takes questions throughout. Some are routine but one tourist asked a scientific question about decomposition.

Petri, a self-described taphophile, adds historical spice to her stories about who’s who at Sunnyside.

Spirits of Sunnyside tours are twice a month, at 10 a.m. on the first Saturday and 1 p.m. on the third, given by Veldean Myers. Tickets are $15 for a single and $12.50 for each additional and available at lowellthomasmuseum.com or at the gate by signing a waiver. Tours run through September.