Elmwood Cemetery

Aerial view of Elmwood Cemetery from the east

Elmwood Cemetery and Mausoleum (originally Elm Leaf Cemetery) is a 412-acre cemetery located in Birmingham's Arlington-West End neighborhood, just outside what was once the city's western border. It is roughly bounded by Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Dennison Avenue Southwest, 14th Place Southwest, and railroad tracks. The main entrance is aligned with the western end of 6th Avenue Southwest.

The cemetery and crematory was established by a group of Fraternal organizations who incorporated as The Elm Leaf Cemetery Company in October 1900. The company's officers were Willis Newton, S. G. McWhorter, and Edmond Shaw, all associated with Warner-Smiley Co. undertakers. The original 40-acre parcel, at the northeast corner of the current property, was, "laid off in the shape of an elm leaf," reflecting the development's name. The first burial was of Annie Cleveland, an eight month old girl, on the morning of October 28, 1900. In December Warner-Smiley displayed a map of the cemetery layout at their offices at 312 20th Street North. The sale of lots was originally tendered under the "assessment plan", with owners billed annually to fund maintenance of the cemetery. That plan proved untenable as many owners withheld payments.

The cemetery was taken over by the Jemison Real Estate in March 1905. They doubled its size and renamed it "Elmwood", while also changing the business plan to a "perpetual care" model, establishing a fund from which to support ongoing maintenance. The company opened an on-site office with a telephone connection. An "Elmwood Station" was established on the West End, Powderly & Cleveland streetcar line.

Another 80 acres were added to Elmwood Cemetery in 1910, followed by parcels of 43 acres in 1924 and 83 acres in 1928. The more spacious and modern Elmwood soon eclipsed Oak Hill Cemetery as the most prominent burial place in the city. As of 2002, it was ranked as the 12th largest cemetery in the United States.

Dionicio Rodríguez sculptures at Elmwood Cemetery

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.

Elmwood Cemetery did not serve non-white persons. According to a policy document adopted in 1954, "Cemetery lots shall be owned only by human beings of the white and/or Caucasian race and the said lots shall be used only for burial of human bodies of the white and/or Caucasian race, and such ownership and use shall at all times be subject to the Rules and Regulations and By-Laws of Elmwood now or hereafter in force. Any attempted transfer of a lot or interest in a lot to one not authorized to own same shall be invalid and of no force and effect and the corporation shall not be obligated to honor such transfer." The cemetery 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
• Robert Greene Hewitt founder of first schools in Trussville, Alabama
• 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
• Elmwood Cemetery maps at sites.google.com

References

• "A New Cemetery" (October 30, 1900) The Birmingham News, p. 2
• "Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)" (April 18, 2009) Wikipedia - accessed May 25, 2009
• 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