History
Greenwood Cemetery was established in 1874 by Herman Krueger, it has approximately 6,000 marked graves but is thought to contain up to 50,000 burials. [4]
In 1890, the cemetery was sold to Krueger's son-in-law, Adolph Foelsch; the Foelsch family owned and operated the cemetery, including manufacturing concrete tombstones, until 1981. Those buried at Greenwood include former enslaved people, war veterans, members of fraternal organizations, artists, laborers and middle class African-Americans, as well as a number of famous and prominent African-Americans from St. Louis.
Many of the people buried at Greenwood were originally from southern states and had participated in the Great Migration north. Funerals were numerous in Greenwood in the mid-twentieth century, but with desegregation, the cemetery saw a decline in use. In the 1980s it began to go derelict. It permanently closed in the 1990s and continued to stand abandoned for most of a decade. In 1999, the nonprofit group Friends of Greenwood Cemetery, Inc. was formed for the purpose of restoring and preserving the site as a historic park. Eventually the group gained ownership of the cemetery. [5]
Volunteers from the Greenwood Cemetery Preservation Association have worked to maintain the grounds and preserve African American history. [6]
Other nearby historic African American cemetery include the Washington Park Cemetery (1920), Father Dickson Cemetery (1903), and Quinette Cemetery (1866). [7] [4]
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