Salt Lake City Cemetery, May 2021

 

This weekend I was near the Salt Lake City Cemetery and I have still been thinking about all of the overturned and toppled headstones.    I stopped by on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.  This time the front gates were open!  And,  I photographed more of the damage.

A severe and historic windstorm ripped up at least 200 trees from the cemetery grounds last September 2020 and postponed at least two funerals.  Winds reached 112 miles per hour. 

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, for the public’s safety, officials closed the cemetery for eight months following the historic windstorm last September, 2020.  The wind uprooted trees, and caused significant damage to the cemetery.  According to the newspaper article, no vaults or caskets were damaged however; 100-year-old trees tore up large pieces of ground as they toppled over pulling up headstones, asphalt, curbs, and gutters.

Salt Lake City hired an archaeologist to help document the storm’s impact on damaged historical artifacts, and the City also hired a monument company to reposition headstones that were displaced by the storm. (1-3)

This is the broken tree that stands on the hill above where I took photographs.

This is a close up of the damaged tree from the above picture. 

This bare area, right across from the broken tree on the hill.  
It looks like there was possibly a large pine tree here.  

This large headstone sat on a (1)base with a (2)bottom stone and then the (3)top tall headstone.  
The top two portions falling over sideways, narrowly missing the headstone next to it, but toppling another headstone beyond it.  Also, the headstone in front of  fell over.  The picture below is the same headstone as above from a different perspective with detailed damage.




These two headstones now lay on the ground under this big tree.




Look at this large headstone it toppled over and took the concrete base with it.

In this photograph, there are three headstones that have fallen off of their bases.  

The large gray one and the one next to it, and further back on the upper right side,

there is a thinner stone laying flat on the ground.


This headstone has been put back up and notice the bare grass where it was laying.  Although this picture does not show it as much as in person, the discoloration to the stone from the ground, is hopefully only temporary.


In all cemeteries you are able to see the difference between newer graves and older graves by the lack of flowers on Memorial Day Weekend.

Just as I was leaving, this buck wandered by.


Sources:

(1)Wahlberg, Rebekah. “Salt Lake City Cemetery reopens to the public after windstorm damage repaired”  The Salt Lake Tribune, published online (https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/05/24/salt-lake-city-cemetery/) 24 May 2021. accessed 30 May 2021. 

(2)Mejia, Garna.  “Historic Salt Lake City Cemetery one of the Areas Hit Hardest By Windstorm”  KSL published online, (https://ksltv.com/445124/historic-salt-lake-city-cemetery-one-of-hardest-hit-areas-by-wild-windstorm/) 9 September 2020.  accessed 20 May 2021.

(3) Mejia, Garna.  “Over 200 Trees, Several Headstones Damaged at Salt Lake City Cemetery.”  KSL published online (https://ksltv.com/445226/over-200-trees-several-headstones-damaged-at-salt-lake-city-cemetery/) 11 September 2020.  accessed 20 May 2021.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Walking Where They Walked: Park Hotel

Image
Park Hotel, Rock Springs, Wyoming, September 2013, RR&B 19 Elk Street, Rock Springs, Sweetwater, Wyoming The Park Hotel opened in 1914 and was the hub of Western Wyoming until the late 1950’s. It was the largest and most modern hotel in the city. Advertisements boasted of hot and cold water in each of its 38 rooms, twenty of which had private baths and toilets. The fourth floor was added in the 1920’s. The Park Hotel catered to commercial men and automobile tourists traveling the Lincoln Highway. The hotel had a boisterous barroom and a sedate restaurant with sparking white table cloths. Rock Springs Miner, 30 January 1914, page 1, Wyoming Newspaper Project online. One memory of the Park Hotel, is related by Thomas P. Cullen, “One summer afternoon while walking up Elk Street toward the C Street Crossing, my attention was drawn to the small crowd assembled near the north end of the Park Hotel. A slight man, of short stature, stood rolling up his pantlegs
Read more

What is a mortcloth?

A mortcloth, or pall, is a funeral cloth used to cover a coffin in the funeral ceremony or the deceased prior to burial.   The deceased’s family usually rented a mortcloth from the local church and after each use, the fabric was washed and readied for use again.   The word comes from the Latin word “pallium” meaning cloak. The Mortcloth case of 1792 begins:   “ For many centuries, and probably up to the 20th, the Church of Scotland was the sole supplier of mortcloths.   As the name would suggest, they were cloths used to cover the dead prior to burial, and after use, were washed ready for rehire. The Church hired these for a few pence, or in some cases loaned out these cloths, until the time of the funeral. The revenue raised by this service, typically around £40 pa, was distributed to the poor of the parish at frequent intervals.”   In the late 1780’s a local Society of Colliers decided to purchase and rent out their own mortcloths preventing the local church from making re
Read more

Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales

Image
Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagillt) The parish of Bagillt was gazetted on 23 May 1844, having been created from the townships of Bagillt Fawr, Bagillt Fechan, Coleshill Fawr and Coleshill Fechan, which were formerly in the parish of Holywell. It is located in the Northern part of Wales. (Genuki, http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/FLN/Bagillt/index.html)   The 1841 British Census finds Margaret(2) Roberts, aged four years living with her parents and siblings in Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales. In 1831, J. Poole penned: "Bagillt is a bustling place, and will continue so, as long as her smelting and coal works go on in their present prosperous state. Well conducted boats go from this place to Chester every day; with a favorable wind, these little barks make the 17 or 18 miles in little more than two hours."   (J. Poole, Gleanings of the histories of Holywell, Flint, St. Asaph and Rhuddlan, 1831 as qtd.  in http://www.genuki.org.uk/
Read more