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Elmwood Historical Old County Cemetery in Fort Smith, AR.
0 (zero) and 24th Street
I need your help. My great-grandparents were buried there Nathan O' Neal Glover in 1896 and Emma Jane Gray Glover in 1897. There are over 800 people buried in this cemetery and there is talk of selling the property and moving the graves. This property sits right next door to a bank. You would never know that it is a cemetery, even though there are headstones there to mark some of the graves the grass is so high that you cannot see them.. I spoke to people on the street and at businesses across the street and on the bank parking lot they had no idea that this was a cemetery. I am firmly opposed to having the graves relocated for this property to be sold. I feel that if this is to happen then all the families must have the opportunity to have their family members relocated to where they want them. Be it a family cemetery or wherever. As for me I want mine taken back to Alabama or Georgia for burial with other family members.
These old cemeteries are often called paupers cemeteries which is not true. They were privately owned cemeteries and the county would pay for burials for people who could not afford it or in times of contagious diseases.
I am trying to gather information for the cemetery at 6th and Rogers that is now built over. Where were the graves moved? Who was buried there?
History of cemetery located at 0 and 24th street? This cemetery is not properly taken care of, headstones have been removed and nobody seems to know what happened to them. Some of the graves were suppose to have been moved to Oak cemetery.
Part of Nolan Springs (Newland) cemetery was also used by the county for contract burials. It is North of Ft. Smith and was sometimes referred to as county cemetery.
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You can tell where the Old County Cemetery begins the Bank lot is pretty and green, where the brown overgrowth begins is where the Cemetery property begins. I could not even walk the cemetery to try and find the graves, it was so overgrown I was afraid of snakes or rats.
You will notice a bull dozer across a drainage area that is mowed and kept up. This well kept area is owned by the same office that owns the Cemetery, the drainage ditch is well kept but the cemetery is not. Why don't they make this a nice area, plant some trees. Contrary to belief not everyone buried in a County Cemeteries do have families that care. The taxes that Nathan O' Neal Glover paid as a person that owned his own business helped purchase this cemetery. This is a cemetery that belongs to the tax payers not a piece of property that can be sold because it has now become a valuable piece of commercial property.