 Mount Mora Cemetery - St. Joseph, Missouri
Posted by: iconions
N 39° 46.457 W 094° 50.515
15S E 342253 N 4404327
Mount Mora Cemetery has twenty acres of art, architecture, and history to explore. It is located at 824 Mt. Mora Road in Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Waymark Code: WMH9MY
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 06/11/2013
Views: 4
Mount Mora Cemetery is an example of a Rural Garden Cemetery in the tradition of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, PA, and Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Mount Mora is designed with a curvilinear rather than rectilinear layout of paths and lots. It is divided into sections by the winding pathways. It is designed on a concept emphasizing romanticism and individual expression. Mount Mora is a secular cemetery physically separated from religious institutions of the city.
At the entrance there is a 10' yew, taxus baccata, which traces its roots back to the Triassic period; thus it descends from one of the world's oldest organisms. There are many very tall trees of all varieties throughout the cemetery. At the World War I Memorial there are new plantings of liatris spicata, 'Kobald,' "gayfeather", iberis sempervirens, "candy tuff' snowflake, heuchera micrantha, "palace purple", buyus green velvet, "green velvet boxwood", echinacea, "purple coneflower, coreopsis verticillata 'moonbeam', "moonbeam coreopsis", and hemerocallis 'happy returns', daylilies. At the Confederate Memorial there are coral carpet roses, salvia nemorosa, "blue hill" salvia and dusty miller.
Mount Mora is a 20-acre cemetery located one mile east of the Buchanan County Courthouse, which placed it outside the original city of St. Joseph boundaries when the cemetery was incorporated in 1851. Since that time, the city has extended itself far beyond Mount Mora Road and today the cemetery's location is in the heart of the city just two blocks from a major St. Joseph thoroughfare, Frederick Avenue. Mount Mora Road is anchored at Frederick Avenue by the oldest business building on the avenue and at the other end by the oldest continually operating cemetery in the City of St. Joseph.
The original twenty acres of the cemetery are inside the cemetery's double-gated entrance, which is flanked by four stone pillars, two of which are topped by large stone urns. Three and one-half acres were purchased later by the Mount Mora Cemetery Association and remain undeveloped outside the gates. Because this acreage is undeveloped and not associated with the significance of the property, they are excluded from the nomination. Just inside the gate to the left is the superintendent's home. To the right are a barn and a workshop. Just beyond on the left is a World War 1 Monument and center-front is the Monument to the Confederate Dead. The roadway entering through the gates branches to form four major curvilinear roads that wind uphill; one hundred and fifty years ago they offered an elevated view-site of the surrounding farmland. These roads meet to complete access from one roadway to another. One roadway, frequently referred to as Mausoleum Row, extends directly north from the entrance. It is lined with 21 beautiful mausoleums. The other roadways reach nine other mausoleums. These mausoleums enhance the rural garden setting and are set off by the multiple plantings in the cemetery. A large number of tombstones throughout the cemetery are obelisks made of soft stone, alloy, or granite. Their height balances the landscape of flat, round, rectangular, and statuary tombstones.
The boundaries are well established and identified by fencing. It is bordered on the south and west by an iron fence. The north and east boundaries are above the city streets and limestone retaining walls rise from the streets to the surface of the cemetery grounds. Highly Street runs east and west on the cemetery's north edge. The current condition of the property is excellent. The superintendent works to prune the trees and shrubs and keep the grass mowed and trimmed, dean the roadways that curve about the rolling terrain, and maintain the house, barn, and workshop.
The exact number of graves is unknown. Burial records indicate more than 15,000 burials. However, during the recent process of computerizing the records, it was discovered that many early burials were not recorded. A current project to catalog all tombstones and mesh them with the recorded burials is underway. It is known from an earlier tombstone canvassing done in 1975 that there are unrecorded burials. The current canvass will include the last 30 years. In addition, the first 20 years of records from 1851 to April 1871 are missing. The legendary story is that they burned in a fire on the property, but early Fire Department records do not exist and, thus, this fire is undocumented.
- National Register Application
Contributing Buildings Waymarked |
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Barn |
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Bauer Mausoleum |
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Burgess Mausoleum |
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Burnes Mausoleum |
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Catlett Mausoleum |
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Collins Mausoleum |
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Crowther Mausoleum |
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Entrance Gate and Fence |
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Fairleigh Mausoleum |
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Fleming Saunders Mausoleum |
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Floyd Mausoleum |
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Geiger Mausoleum |
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Hier Mausoleum |
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Judson Mausoleum |
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Krug Mausoleum |
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Lemon Mausoleum |
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Marlow Mausoleum |
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Maud Vanderlinde Mausoleum |
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McCord Mausoleum |
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Motter Mausoleum |
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Nave Mausoleum |
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Owen Mausoleum |
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Powell Mausoleum |
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Richardson Mausoleum |
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Self Mausoleum |
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Smith Mausoleum |
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Superintendent's Residence |
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Tootle Mausoleum |
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Townsend Mausoleum |
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Wickerlin Mausoleum |
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William Bartlett Mausoleum |
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Workshop / "Business Building" |
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Street address: 824 Mount Mora Road St Joseph, MO USA 64501
 County / Borough / Parish: Buchanan
 Year listed: 2006
 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture, Landscape Architecture
 Periods of significance: 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874
 Historic function: Funerary - Cemetery
 Current function: Funerary - Cemetery
 Privately owned?: yes
 Season start / Season finish: From: 01/01/2013 To: 12/31/2013
 Hours of operation: From: 8:00 AM To: 5:00 PM
 Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
 Secondary Website 1: [Web Link]
 Secondary Website 2: [Web Link]
 National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Visit Instructions: Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.
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