Smith Mausoleum - Mount Mora Cemetery - St. Joseph, Missouri - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

Date unknown
Architect/Builder: unknown

The Smith mausoleum is an excellent example of Art Deco period Egyptian Revival. The flared base and cornice, as well as many of the incised decorations, are similar to those used on earlier structures, but the overall effect is of a building that is more streamlined and stylistic than Egyptian Revival structures from the Victorian period.

The exterior walls taper (batter) out from a continuous cornice to a heavy plinth base. Battered pilasters at the front elevation frame a columned recess two steps above the grade. Unlike earlier Egyptian Revival structures, the sides and rear do not repeat the battered pilasters, but are simple slabs of honed granite that flare out into a cavetto cornice continuous around the building. This deeply flared cornice has "SMITH" incised directly over the front doors in a distinctly Deco ribbed font. Massive, tapered columns, one at each side of the entrance doors, have date palm capitals and lotiform detailing around the base. A triple-stack of square-cut granite slabs form the stepped pyramid roof. The successively smaller slab sizes allow the roof to be spanned efficiently, a construction technique used by the early builders of the pyramids.

Double-leaf bronze entrance doors have an upper grille composed of stylized lotus buds. The flat panel below, framed in an Art Deco reeded motif, surrounds a lotus blossom loop pull. The Egyptians used the lotus as a symbol of "giving of life", and thus it symbolizes reincarnation of the body within.

Four crypts of polished limestone are stacked from the floor to the ceiling, just eighteen inches beyond the entrance doors. The granite of the exterior is used, in a polished finish, on the interior floor.