Olathe Memorial Cemetery, est. 1865
This is an archived index from the Digital Cemetery.
738 N Chestnut St
Olathe, KS
GPS Location
38° 53' 46" N, 94° 49' 02" W
38.8961, -94.8172
GoogleMap
Legal Location
Section 26, Township 13S, Range 23E
Owned by the City of Olathe. See the Olathe Cemetery website.
About the Cemetery
"The cemetery was laid out in 1864, by Watts Beckwith, who originally owned the site. The first burial was on April 30, 1865, the body being that of Miss Eloria Beckwith. The second grave to be dug in Olathe cemetery was for Edwin M. Inlow, wo was buried on the 5th day of May, 1865. Up to Saturday, Jun 10, 1905, 787 bodies had been buried on Olathe cemetery. In the original plat there was contained ten acres, but the ground now enclosed and available includes about forty-five acres. Of this about twenty-sixx acres ah been platted. The first addition to original cemetery grounds was made in 1875, and the second addition was make in 1890. The soldiers burying group was laid out and the handsome monument erected in 1893."
Mirror Publishing Company. The Olathe Mirror, 15 Jun 1905, Thu., Volume XLVII., Number 25, page 1.
Olathe was established in 1857, and the original burial ground was at Church Square. The first railroad through Olathe opened in 1868, the year Kansas gained Statehood. Because the railroad was to be located right next to the burial grounds, identified graves were removed to Beckwith's new cemetery.
The City of Olathe purchased the Beckwith cemetery 1879, and added land 1889. In the 1970s, Northgate Street was widened and inadvertently covered an old portion of a potter's field of unmarked graves. This area may have included those graves that were moved from the original cemetery. A memorial was unveiled April 27, 2008 with 76 names of those known from the original cemetery.
The north two-thirds of the cemetery, the oldest portion, is layed out in rectangular sections and blocks and raised block markers have recently been installed. The northeast side of the cemetery contains a potter's field and is the area impacted by street expansion.
The southern-most 1/3 of the cemetery was designed in circular and semi-circular patterns making row notations impossible. Other features in the southern-most section include a baby section, a Civil War Memorial dedicated in 1893, a World War I Memorial dedicated in 1926, a DAR Memorial dedicated May 13, 1934, and a small columbarium.
Index
Transcribed by Linda K Lewis, Barb Mills, Carol Rollins, 10 Aug 2007.
Photographed by Linda K Lewis, Barb Mills, Bruce Smykowski, 2007.
This is a complete transcription by reading and photographing the gravestones. Block numbers from the official cemetery map (Image 1) are included. Section number and row is based on the diagram (Image 2). The diagram indicates sections included in this index. Note: There are 2000-3000 unmarked graves.
Surname Index [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I-J] [K] [L] [M] [N-O] [P-Q] [R] [S] [T-V] [W] [Y-Z] [Unknown]
