A Grave Problem to Reno Families

By Brooke Ruhl

Reno’s Hillside Cemetery is in shambles. The headstones have been so badly vandalized and are so obviously aged. The dates on the graves go back as far as the 1800’s. A condominium developer has plans to develop over the historic site, but to do so they must move over 1,300 graves.

The project has split Reno residents against each other. Locals with relatives in the cemetery feel an alternative should be considered, where others feel it is time for the eye sore to go.

“You can tell how a government cares about its citizens by how it respects its cemeteries,” Joseph Galata, Legislative Advocate, representing Hillside Historic Cemetery cited from an interview with Good Morning America, quoting Benjamin Franklin. There has been a lot of talk within the last two decades in regards to the future of Reno’s Hillside Cemetery, according to the Meeting’s minutes. The cemetery is located next to the University of Nevada, Reno, on the corner of Ninth and Nevada Street.

A limited liability company has started looking into the cemetery site as new ground to develop over and to build new condominiums, says Barrie Lynn, a local realtor. This is a problem that concerns local families who have ancestors in the cemetery, she said. Within the cemetery lies some household names to rest. This includes Edmund Plumb and George Peckham. A relative of George Peckham lives in Reno, says Lynn. Neil Brooks was disappointed when he learned that his great-grandfather’s grave could ultimately be moved.

“I don’t want my relatives graves to be moved,” Neil Brooks said. “They were put there so they could be a permanent part of Nevada’s history.”

Neil Brooks is not alone in this. Recently he acquired the deed to his family’s plot. The deed is written in cursive that looks almost ancient now, which really stresses how long these people have been buried there, he said. “The people buried here are Reno pioneers,” Neil Brooks said, “We need to preserve this cemetery not only morally for the people buried here but to preserve the history of Reno”.

With the admissions and attendance rate of students going up at the University, having new housing near campus will help with the overcrowding issue, as mentioned in the legislation. Neil Brooks would agree that the city can only get bigger and better, he just wishes there was a way to promote growth and preserve history at the same time.

Ancestors of the deceased are not the only ones concerned for the cemetery. Frances Tryon, a local genealogist and a volunteer of the cemetery who has researched and documented more than 1,300 graves, is concerned with losing the history the cemetery has to offer.

“This is where the founding fathers chose to be laid to rest. We don’t want to lose our history. This isn’t just a building, it’s the final burial site of the people that worked so hard to build Reno,” Tryon said.

Not only are there some moral issues with building over the cemetery, Lynn and Tryon describe some health and legal issues that may arise if the site is ever demolished.

“William Gould who is buried here died of anthrax,” Tryon said, “The anthrax spores can live in the ground for up to 500 years. But we also do not know for sure how many others died of anthrax,” she continues, “To safely exhume these bodies, it would require pricey assistance from government agencies, they would have to bring in hazmat.”

On top of that, the legal matter of the grave sites is also a concern to Lynn. The cemetery’s first burial was in 1875, she says. It’s Reno’s oldest cemetery, but the concern here Lynn explains is that there was never a perpetual care fund developed like modern cemeteries would have. They sold each plot like its own piece of real estate, each with its own deed.

“The problem is the developer can only buy the area surrounding the graves, not the actual graves,” Lynn says, “The graves remain the property of the name written on the deed, but there is a conditional statement on the deeds that could change things.”

From the 1870’s to the 1920’s each separate gravesite was sold like a parcel. For each small piece of land containing the remains, there is a separate deed. Lynn explains that technically the land belongs to the heirs as long as it is used as a cemetery. Lynn hopes that the fight over the cemetery never gets to that point where each specific deed is going to require a lawsuit. For now, she is just concerned by the City of Reno.

“In other cities with old cemeteries, usually the city cares enough about the people buried there to help,” she exclaims, “But that’s not the case in Reno. If we want to preserve this cemetery, it’s going to have to be up to us and up to the families of the people buried here.”

Lynn and Tryon have a lot of things planned for the cemetery, from starting a nonprofit to support the cemetery and to fix it up to the beautiful historic treasure it could be, they said. Tryon says their goal for the cemetery from here on out is to,

“Clean, preserve, protect and restore.”