Elmwood Cemetery
Elmwood Cemetery and Mausoleum is a 412-acre cemetery established in the 1880s (as Elm Leaf Cemetery) in the West End neighborhood of Birmingham by a group of Fraternal organizations.
The original 40-acre parcel was taken over by the Jemison Real Estate in the early 1900s. They doubled the cemetery's size and renamed in 1906. Another 80 acres were added in 1910, followed by parcels of 43 acres in 1924 and 83 acres in 1928. The more spacious and modern Elmwood gradually eclipsed Oak Hill Cemetery as the most prominent burial place in the city. As of 2002, it was ranked the 12th largest cemetery in the nation.
The cemetery is roughly bounded by Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Dennison Avenue Southwest, 14th Place Southwest, and railroad tracks. The main entrance is directly across from 6th Avenue Southwest.
The first recorded burial was of Annie Cleveland, an eight month old girl, in October 28, 1900. In the 1930s Mexican sculptor Dionicio Rodríguez contributed several cast-in-place concrete sculptural elements, including a mushroom-shaped "Natural Beach Umbrella", "A Rustic Bench" in the form of a fallen tree trunk, a Chinese-style lantern, and a walking bridge over the cemetery's drainage ditch, which flows north toward Valley Creek.
The Lackey family constructed a funeral chapel for Johns-Ridouts Mortuary adjoining the cemetery at 800 Dennison Avenue Southwest in 1962.
Originally, the cemetery was whites-only. It was was integrated in 1970 after Vietnam War veteran Bill Terry Jr's family won a federal lawsuit barring the owners from discriminating based on race. There are currently around 130,000 individuals interred at Elmwood.
Notable burials
- Mary Anderson (1866–1953), inventor of the windshield wiper
- Donald Beatty (1900–1980), aviator, explorer and inventor
- Charley Boswell (1916–1995), blind golfer and insurance executive
- Bear Bryant (1913–1983), University of Alabama football coach
- Charles Carraway (1878-1963), physician
- James Saxon Childers (1899–1965), novelist
- Louis V. Clark (1862-1934), insurance executive, developer and Alabama National Guard officer
- B. B. Comer (1848–1927), Governor of Alabama 1907–1911, U.S. Senator 1920
- James Coyle (1873–1921), Catholic priest
- George Crawford (1869-1936), President of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company 1907-1930
- Russell Cunningham (1855–921), Governor of Alabama 1904–1905
- Piper Davis (1917–1989), baseball player
- Jody Ford (1935-1977) hairstylist and salon owner, notable for being openly transgender in the 1970s.
- John Forney (1927–1997), University of Alabama play-by-play radio announcer
- Pat Gray (1940–2020), television host
- Sam Hairston (1920–1997), baseball player
- Art Hanes (1916–1997), Mayor of Birmingham 1961–1963
- Evelyn Starks Hardy (1923-2015), gospel star and music teacher
- Patti Ruffner Jacobs (1875–1935), social reformer
- Joseph Johnston (1843–1913), Governor of Alabama 1896-1900, U. S. Senator 1907–1913
- Eddie Kendricks (1939–1992), singer, co-founder of The Temptations
- Larry Langford (1948-2019), Mayor of Fairfield and Birmingham, President of Jefferson County Commission
- Denise McNair (1951–1963), victim of the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, relocated in 2007 from Shadow Lawn Memorial Park
- Erskine Ramsay (1864–1953), mining engineer, inventor and philanthropist
- Rufus Rhodes (1856–1910), founder of the Birmingham News
- Sun Ra (1914–1993), jazz musician
- Oscar Underwood (1862–1929), U.S. Senator 1915–1927
- Gene Walker (1893–1924), motorcycle racer
- Newman Waters (1897-1973), theater executive and real estate developer
- Frank White (1847–1922), U.S. Senator 1914–1915
- Abraham Woods Jr (1928–2008), minister, Civil Rights activist
- Joseph Woodward (1843-1917), president of Woodward Iron Company
External links
- Elmwood Cemetery at Find-A-Grave
- Elmwood Cemetery at the Political Graveyard
References
- "Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 Apr 2009, 16:30 UTC. 25 May 2009 [1].
- Stock, Erin (May 24, 2009) "Soldier whose death led to Elmwood Cemetery integration is honored." The Birmingham News
- "Elmwood Cemetery, Birmingham" in The Heritage of Jefferson County, Alabama (2002) Clanton: Heritage Publishing Consultants. ISBN 1891647547, p. 138