General Info

All three of Duluths Protestant cemeteries sit at the edge of town, reflecting their beginnings as a product of the Rural Cemetery Movement. Historically, graveyards were placed in town greens, surrounded by wooden fences that often were disrupted by grazing livestock. Death was an unpleasant and necessary evil, but it was still close by and part of the communitys day-to-day life. Lacking cement vaults and falling victim to cattle grazing and disrepair, it was easy to stumble into ruts made by collapsing caskets. Not only were the burial sites eyesores, but epidemics like yellow fever instilled a fear that they were also hotbeds of infestation. Put this all together with a massive influx of immigrants and a population increase, and out came the Rural Cemetery Movement, which utilized landscaping to create a park-like setting on the outskirts of urban sprawl. These bucolic burial grounds were crisscrossed with tree-lined, well-maintained paths that followed the natural curves of the landscape. Changing views on death, courtesy of the Victorian era, created an atmosphere of picnics, romantic strolls and dog-walking through rural cemeteries across the country.