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Bellefontaine Cemetery
The Wainwright Tomb at Bellefontaine Cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Map
Details
Established1849
Location
4947 West Florissant Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri
CountryUnited States of America
Coordinates38°41′27″N 90°14′06″W / 38.69095°N 90.23494°W / 38.69095; -90.23494
TypePublic
Size314 acres (127 ha)
No. of graves87,000
WebsiteBellefontaine Cemetery
Find a GraveBellefontaine Cemetery

Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit cemetery and arboretum located in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the Louis Sullivan-designed Wainwright Tomb, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery contains 314 acres (1.27 km2) of land and over 87,000 graves, including those of William Clark, Adolphus Busch, Thomas Hart Benton, and William S. Burroughs. Many Union and Confederate soldiers from the American Civil War are buried at Bellefontaine, as well as numerous local and state politicians.[1]

History

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On March 7, 1849, banker William McPherson and lawyer John Fletcher Darby assembled a group of some of St. Louis’s most prominent citizens in order to found The Rural Cemetery Association of St. Louis. This association sought to respond to the needs of the rapidly growing city by establishing a new cemetery several miles outside city limits. St. Louis was experiencing exponential population growth during this time and city leaders saw the existing graveyards, which were mostly concentrated along Jefferson Avenue near the city center, as an impediment to urban development. The city cemeteries were also considered a public health hazard (see miasma theory). These problems compounded during the summer of 1849, when a massive cholera epidemic swept through St. Louis and claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people. With existing cemeteries running out of space and resources to expand, and with many fearing that another cholera outbreak could occur at any time, this epidemic further underscored the need for a new rural cemetery for St. Louis.

In 1849, the Rural Cemetery Association purchased the former Hempstead family farm, located five miles northwest of the city, with the intent to turn it into a large rural cemetery modeled after Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts. The 138-acre Hempstead farm was situated along the road to Fort Bellefontaine, which led the Association to name its new cemetery after the fort. Within a few months, the Association had hired landscape architect Almerin Hotchkiss, who had helped design Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, to begin drafting and implementing a master plan for Bellefontaine. Hotchkiss served as superintendent of the cemetery for the next 46 years; he designed most of Bellefontaine’s roadways and landscaping, and oversaw maintenance of the grounds. During this same time, the cemetery steadily acquired more land so as to provide room for future growth and by 1865 had reached its present-day size of 314 acres.

The first burial at Bellefontaine Cemetery took place on April 27, 1850, and the official dedication followed several weeks later. Bodies from older graveyards within the city of St. Louis were moved to Bellefontaine, including some from the cemetery at the Old Cathedral near the Mississippi River. Bellefontaine was also the resting place for several victims of the 1855 Gasconade Bridge train disaster, the worst railroad disaster in Missouri history. Also interred at Bellefontaine are members of several notable brewing families, including the Anheusers, Buschs, Lemps, and Griesediecks.

In 1909, the renowned St. Louis architectural firm Eames and Young was commissioned to design a new chapel for the cemetery. The Hotchkiss Chapel, named for the cemetery’s first architect, was completely renovated in 2009, and an indoor columbarium was built on to the back. The chapel is currently used for weddings and memorial services.

In the 1990s, construction crews working at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport discovered graves from a historic African-American cemetery. These remains were reinterred in Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Cemetery today

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As of 2012 over 87,000 people have been buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery, and approximately 100 new burials take place each year. Bellefontaine remains a non-profit, non-denominational cemetery, and still holds over 100 acres of open, unused land. Some of this extra land has even been converted into prairie and woodland. Bellefontaine contains over 14 miles of paved roads and, as an accredited arboretum, is home to over 180 species of trees and shrubs. A new lakeside garden and columbarium were completed in 2010, and other major landscaping projects are planned or in progress.

The cemetery contains the graves of many prominent pioneers to the West, as well as businessmen, politicians, and generals who remain significant figures in the history of St. Louis and the United States. Many of the wealthiest families at Bellefontaine are interred in ornate mausoleums which overlook the Mississippi River, and draw from Classical, Romanesque, Gothic, and Egyptian architectural styles. The most famous of these mausoleums include the Wainwright Tomb, designed for Charlotte Dickson Wainwright by the famed Chicago school architect Louis Sullivan in 1892 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970; the Busch Mausoleum, designed for Adolphus Busch and Lilly Anheuser by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett in 1915; and the Brown Brothers Mausoleums, designed in 1928 by Mauran, Russell and Crowell and in 1910 by Isaac Taylor. There are also a number of large family plots in the cemetery, many of which are marked by tall obelisk monuments with elaborate bases. The oldest graves in the cemetery are located on pioneer Edward Hempstead’s family lot and date as far back as 1816. Guided tours of the cemetery’s main historical and architectural highlights are available weekly and are open to the public.

Notable burials

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The Busch Mausoleum, designed by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Bellefontaine Cemetery Website", accessed 12 Jun 2013
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Additional reading

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