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    Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery
    Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery
    Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery
    Ebook192 pages57 minutes

    Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery

    By Parker Anderson

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    About this ebook

    One of the most historically significant places at the Grand Canyon, yet one of the least known, is the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery. Very few national parks have an active burial ground, but the pioneers who rest here represent all walks of life throughout the canyon's history. Pioneer Cemetery is the final resting place for miners, businessmen, park superintendents, rangers, mule wranglers, and even some local characters. Legendary residents of the Grand Canyon, including John Hance, Pete Berry, Ralph Cameron, William Wallace Bass, and the Kolb brothers are also buried onsite, secluded in a beautiful grove of pine trees. It is an area of the Grand Canyon that is seldom written about or discussed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 30, 2015
    ISBN9781439650585
    Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery
    Author

    Parker Anderson

    Parker Anderson is an Arizona native and a recognized historian in Prescott and the surrounding area. He has authored the books Elks Opera House , Cemeteries of Yavapai County , Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery , Wicked Prescott , Arizona Gold Gangster Charles P. Stanton , Hidden History of Prescott and Haunted Prescott (with Darlene Wilson), as well as Story of a Hanged Man and The World Beyond . He has also authored a number of Arizona-themed history plays for Blue Rose Theater in Prescott. Darlene Wilson has lived in Arizona for more than twenty-five years years and has been involved in the paranormal world for more than forty-five years as a medium and telepath. She has worked with the police and experienced a ghostly encounter at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. She is the owner and tour guide of A Haunting Experience Tours/Haunted Prescott Tours in Prescott, Arizona, and coauthored Haunted Prescott with Parker Anderson.

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      Book preview

      Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery - Parker Anderson

      Cemetery.

      INTRODUCTION

      It has often been said that the Grand Canyon is one of the very few national parks to have its own cemetery within its borders. In a broad scope, this is not entirely true. Many of the Civil War battlefields are in the national park system and contain the burial grounds of the fallen soldiers.

      Perhaps the statement is more accurate if we rephrase it to say that the Grand Canyon is one of the very few national parks to have its own active cemetery—one that is still in use today.

      The Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery began with the 1919 burial of John Hance, one of the first white settlers on the canyon rim. He was followed soon after by Ralph Berry, the son of canyon miner and businessman Pete Berry. The Grand Canyon attained national park status that same year, and as there came to be more deaths in the park, this cemetery in a quiet grove of pine trees started to grow. On Memorial Day 1928, the Grand Canyon American Legion, John Ivens Post No. 42, dedicated a plaque and entered into a partnership with the National Park Service to help maintain the cemetery.

      Due to the obvious interest people would have in being buried at Grand Canyon, the National Park Service has had to enact strict regulations on who is eligible for interment. To be buried here, one has to have been a resident of the Grand Canyon for a minimum of three years. Indeed, there are many residents at the canyon. The park rangers, mule wranglers, concession employees, and other workers have to live at the canyon, often in communal housing, since the cities of Flagstaff and Williams, Arizona, are too far away to commute. Also, one cannot live at the Grand Canyon unless employed there, or without some other strong tie to the canyon.

      The three-year residency requirement for interment in the cemetery can be waived if the deceased made a great contribution to the benefit and understanding of the canyon, as geologist Dr. John Maxson did. Also, immediate family members of canyon personnel are sometimes allowed to be buried here. The cemetery averages around four burials per year.

      The graves represent the entire spectrum of Grand Canyon history, past and present. Buried in this beautiful, peaceful glade are park superintendents, rangers, miners, scientists, Fred Harvey girls, workers of all trades, and one murder victim—possibly two. The lure of the canyon is so strong that there are a number of cases of men and women who were returned here for burial, even though they had left the canyon many years earlier.

      Visitors, tourists, and taphophiles who visit the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery are often struck by how many of the park’s legendary early settlers are buried here, together in the same resting place. It is difficult to name anyone significant in canyon history that does not rest here. Perhaps the only exceptions are Mary Colter, Burton and Niles J. Cameron, and members of the Fred Harvey family.

      In 1970, after many years of plans and delays, a multipurpose center called the Shrine of the Ages was completed, with the purpose of hosting nondenominational religious events, private functions, lectures, and other presentations. It was built almost adjacent to the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery, and sometimes funerals for the deceased are held here. The National Park Service formally took over the Shrine of the Ages in 1975.

      Many cemeteries in the United States are abandoned, in an advanced state of decay, or have vanished altogether, while others run the risk of suffering this fate. But the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery, located within the boundaries of a national park, will never be in danger. It will be around long after we have passed from the scene, as a monument to those who helped make one of the Seven Wonders of the World what it is today.

      One

      OVER THE YEARS

      When John Hance was buried in a secluded grove of ponderosa pines in 1919, it was not necessarily with the intent of starting a cemetery. But by the mid-1920s, there were more than a dozen graves here, and the National Park Service realized they had a bona fide burial ground in the park.

      As time went on, the Grand Canyon American Legion, John Ivens Post No. 42, entered into an agreement with the National Park Service to care for the cemetery. Improvements were made, a gate was erected, and pathways were forged around the grounds by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers.

      Millions of people have visited the Grand Canyon, and very few of them have ever realized there is a cemetery. While the location is beautiful, it is not on the rim, nor is it in view of the canyon itself, so it is difficult to just happen across it if one is not specifically looking for

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