Rolling Hills Cemetery - Prescott, Arizona, USA
N 34° 39.051 W 112° 25.818
12S E 368925 N 3835255
Most of the graves here are unmarked and forgotten. Anywhere from 100 to 500 graves could be in this cemetery.
Waymark Code: WMCKY8
Location: Arizona, United States
Date Posted: 09/18/2011
Views: 4
Rolling Hills Cemetery has its origins in the Great Depression when a local citizen saw a need for inexpensive burial plots. Most burials occurred between 1933 and 1950. According to azgenweb.org, in
about 1956, Lester Ward “Budge” Ruffner deeded the cemetery land to the city of Prescott with the provision that there be no more burials unless in already purchased plots. An April 2, 1958 motion in the minutes of the city council prohibited further burials.Link here. The cemetery is on both sides of Ruger Road and just a few feet from the golf course. There are many unmarked graves there, as well as carefully tended graves and a nice flagpole honoring those who are buried there who served in the military.
As an interesting side note, Prescott had a substantial Chinese immigrant population in the early 1900s. Many of them were buried in the Citizens Cemetery. According to an article on Chinese in Prescott, online at Sharlot Hall Museum:
However, when Sheldon Street was widened in the 1950s the graves were moved to Rolling Hills Cemetery by the airport, and according to the late Budge Ruffner the cemetery never was surveyed or platted so no one could be sure how many people were buried there. When the Antelope Hills Golf Course was constructed in 1956, some unmarked graves, including those of the Chinese, were perhaps or perhaps not relocated and may be under a part of the fairway. Link here.