Gates of Hell and Phantom Camaros: What History Says About Riverdale Road

There's a two-lane road on the Front Range that a whole lot of people swear is trying to kill you.

Riverdale Road sits in Adams County and runs about 11 miles from Thornton to Brighton, per FOX31.

That's roughly four and a half hours east of us. And depending on who you ask, it's either a normal commute or the scariest drive in the country.

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The Riverdale Road Colorado Ghost Stories

Pick your nightmare. The Denver Public Library sums up the classics: a ghost jogger who taps on passing cars, a phantom Camaro running with one headlight, and a hitchhiker in white who vanishes into the dark.

The Camaro is the headliner. Legend says its owner died at a blind corner in the '70s, and now it shows up out of nowhere, tails drivers, and pulls alongside to challenge them to a race, according to Denver Terrors.

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Real people, Real Riverdale Road encounters

When FOX31 asked on Facebook, the comments poured in.

A guy named Michael said he delivered newspapers on the road for two years and had "numerous run-ins with the phantom Camaro." Another commenter, David, said he saw someone hanging from a tree and called police, who found nothing.

Even a pro got spooked. Stephanie Smith, a co-founder of Denver Ghost Hunters, told 9News she hit one spot on the road and got the sense, "I don't feel alone."

Plenty of locals aren't buying it. One man said he's driven it thousands of times over 20 years and never saw a thing.

But wait, what about the Riverdale Road mansion fire and the Gates of Hell?

The big one is the madman who torched his mansion with his family inside. That house supposedly sat on the north end of the road near Highway 7, behind big iron gates that locals started calling the Gates of Hell, according to Colorado Haunted Houses. Throw in rumors of Satanists holding rituals in a field off the road, and you've got yourself a legend.

Here's the thing. The Gates of Hell story traces back to the former Wolpert site, per Beyond Haunted, and the library actually checked what happened there. A home at 9190 Riverdale Road did burn around 1 a.m. on November 28, 1975, but the Denver Post reported no deaths or injuries because nobody was living there.

The real danger on Riverdale Road

Here's the part that isn't folklore. CDOT told FOX31 there were three deadly crashes on Riverdale Road between January 2021 and September 2022, killing five people.

Haunted or not, it's a dark, winding road. Slow down.