New effort emerges to preserve Reno cemetery

Written by John Ellingsworth

Wednesday, 07 July 2004

[Originally posted here.] New effort emerges to preserve Reno cemetery ASSOCIATED PRESS RENO (AP) - A new effort is being proposed to try to save Reno's historic Hillside Cemetery by forming a nonprofit group to oversee its renovation and upkeep. Neighbors of the cemetery pushed the idea for a nonprofit group during a cemetery workshop sponsored by the West University Neighborhood Advisory Board. The group voted to consider using city provided funds to initiate the effort. If it isn't preserved, proposals have been made that a portion of the cemetery be developed as student housing for the University of Nevada, Reno. "It's going to take a village to work and solve this problem," said chairwoman Lora Nay. "We can't give up this time." Many of Reno's first settlers are buried at the cemetery that dates to 1879. But over the last 50 years it has been desecrated by neglect and vandals, with headstones and monuments damaged, toppled or stolen. "Everyone has dropped the ball. The state, the county, the heirs," said Betty Mills, who lived near the cemetery for 35 years. "The people who are paying for it are buried there. They expected to rest in peace and not be disinterred." Candace Wheeler, who has led efforts to preserve historic cemeteries in Virginia City, said getting the Reno cemetery on the National Register of Historic Places would help in fund-raising. "How many cultural resources shall we mow over?" Wheeler said. "Disinterring dead bodies, at the very least, is bad karma." John Lawton, who bought the cemetery for $10,000 in 1996, lobbied for a state law in 2001 that has allowed him to claim ownership of the entire cemetery, including individual plots. When there is no endowment fund for perpetual maintenance, the law allows Lawton to create a cemetery authority, remove the remains and use the land for other purposes. As required, he posted his intentions to disinter remains in 2003. Lawton, who owns Sierra Memorial Gardens, said he will support these new efforts to preserve the cemetery. But he told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he wants to see something done before the end of the year. Lawton said developers have approached him about 5 acres for a student housing project. Remains in the cemetery would be relocated and put in child-sized caskets on a monument wall or mausoleum. But challenges likely would be raised by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, which believes many of those buried in the pauper's plot are Indian ancestors and protected under federal law. The city attorney's office also said that people who can prove their relatives were buried there or hold burial plot deeds would have standing in court to challenge the 2001 state law turning those plots over to Lawton. --- Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 March 2008 )

 

< Prev		Next >