MCMVIII - Larson Mausoleum - Resurrection Cemetery - Helena, MT - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

St. Paul, Minn. — The P.N. Peterson Granite Company has just completed what is known as the Larson mausoleum, erected at Helena, Mont. It is of the Doric style of architecture, being built entirely of Barre, Vt., granite. The colonnade of Doric columns, eighteen inches in diameter and eighteen feet nine inches in height, extends around the front and two sides, supporting the roofs. The bronze work is very elaborate. The interior is finished in Carrara marble, as also the altar. There are nine catacombs.

There are sixteen columns in all, with a cross in the frieze and the construction year, 1908 (in Roman numerals), below it. The family name is above the doors, but there is no indication as to who is interred here.

Peter Larson (1850-1907) is the only Larson family member listed on Findagrave who appears to be interred within the mausoleum. Oddly, there is a note on his page indicating that this mausoleum was relocated from the Old St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery to Resurrection Cemetery on October 30, 1908. This is odd, given the reference in "Granite, Marble, and Bronze" to its recent construction, as one wonders why a mausoleum would be built and then relocated so soon. That cemetery was already abandoned and neglected by 1908, ultimately prompting exhumations and relocation to Resurrection Cemetery, and shamefully, most bodies were left behind and their headstones thrown onto a pile at Resurrection, to have their inscriptions removed and used for other projects. Today, Robinson Park is on that site, and what was relocated were probably Mr. Larson's remains, to rest in a new mausoleum.

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