City of Austins Five City Cemeteries A brief overview of

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City of AustinsFive City CemeteriesA brief
overview of

• Oakwood
• Oakwood Annex
• Evergreen
• Austin Memorial Park
• Plummers

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Five active city cemeteries
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Oakwood Cemetery1601 Navasota StreetNational
Register Property and Recorded Texas Historical
Landmark

• Established in 1839, Oakwood consists of 40 acres
  with some 23,000 burials, including 2 Jewish
  sections
• Receives approximately 40 burials a year
• All lots were sold out by late 1900s

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Oakwood Cemetery Annex
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Oakwood Cemetery Annex1601 Comal StreetNational
Register Property

• Established in 1914, the Annex has 22 acres of
  land with some 13,000 burials
• Receives approximately 70 burials a year
• All lots were sold out by the 1940s

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Evergreen Cemetery3304 East 12th Street _at_
Airport Blvd

• Established in 1926, Evergreen consists of 30
  acres of land with some 12,000 burials
  historically an African-American cemetery
• Receives approximately 230 burials a year
• Still has lots for sale

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Evergreen Cemetery
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Austin Memorial Park2800 Hancock Drive

• Previously a privately owned cemetery, AMP was
  purchased by the city in 1941 and covers 86 acres
  with approximately 18,500 burials
• Receives approximately 360 burials a year
• Still has lots for sale

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Austin Memorial Park
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Plummers Cemetery1150 Springdale Road

• Plummers consists of 8 acres and was acquired by
  the city as a condition of the purchase of land
  for Givens Park in 1957 historically an
  African-American cemetery
• Receives an average of 3 interments per year

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Plummers Cemetery
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Maintenance History

• When the city cemeteries were being established,
  it was the families responsibility to tend to
  grave sites. Some did this themselves and some
  contracted the care out to vendors. As families
  started to migrate out of the area or simply died
  out, fewer families took care of their plots.
• Over time many of the family plots and monuments
  became neglected and fell into a state of
  disrepair.
• The operation of the citys cemeteries has passed
  from a cemetery division, to public works, then
  to the Parks and Recreation Department.

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Oakwood Cemetery
In August of 1970, City Manager Lynn Andrews
reported on the five cemeteries then under city
jurisdiction and recommended that maintenance be
increased on those sites, including watering,
fertilizing, and replanting of turf and shrubs.
This marked a short period of renewed interest at
Oakwood, resulting in the placement of a Texas
Historic Landmark marker in the cemetery in 1972.
This was also the period that the still-extant
irrigation system was installed at Oakwood.
Although some improvements were made,
maintenance continued to be an issue in the 1980s
when Sarah Robbins accused the city of falling
down in its responsibility to maintain this
historic site. It may have been in response to
this and other complaints that InterCare
Corporation, an independent contractor, was hired
to maintain Oakwood and the other four city-owned
cemeteries. InterCare continues to maintain
these sites today. Excerpt from
Cultural Landscape Report by University of Texas
School of Architecture students
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How are cemeteries funded?

• In modern memorial parks, the establishment of
  perpetual or endowment care funds are used,
  setting aside monies for the future needs of
  these sites.
• None of the citys five cemeteries are perpetual
  nor endowment care sites.

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Save Austins Cemeteries

• Established in 2004
• Mission Statement Save Austins Cemeteries
  (SAC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to
  preserving and restoring historic cemeteries in
  Austin through documentation and education, and
  to promote historic cemeteries of Austin as local
  and state cultural resources

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Oakwood Cemetery Model

• Of the five city cemeteries, Oakwood Cemetery was
  selected by SAC as its initial and primary
  project due to its age, historical importance,
  wealth of potential information, visual appeal,
  and potential for grant monies
• Oakwood will be the master plan model for the
  other four city cemeteries
• According to John F. Llewellyn, a cemetery and
  funeral industry leader, a good master plan is a
  comprehensive picture of the cemeterys physical
  and fiscal future. It should encompass strategic
  engineering, operational, marketing, and
  financial planning. A master plan is an
  important ingredient in planning cash flow, as
  well as meeting the inventory need of the sales
  force. It is also an essential ingredient to
  developing a financial model to test the adequacy
  of a cemeterys endowment care fund.

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Save Austins Cemeteries

• Joined the City of Austins Adopt-A-Park
  Improvement Project of Oakwood Cemetery in 2005
  to establish a collaboration with PARD to
• - develop a master plan
• - conduct site and tree surveys
• - have open house events to educate the public
  and to raise awareness of the historical
  importance of Oakwood
• - gather information (oral histories,
  photographs, etc.) from descendants to be
  archived at the Austin History Center
• - conduct public workshops

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Adopt-A-Park Goals

• Develop a working relationship between PARD, SAC,
  InterCare Corporation, and other project
  participants that will facilitate the development
  of a master plan
• The development of a master plan document that
  will allow SAC, PARD, and other project
  participants to apply for grant monies to
  stabilize and improve Oakwood Cemetery
• The collection of raw data by SAC will allow for
  more accurate projections of maintenance and true
  operational costs, so PARD can present to the
  city council the need for assistance from other
  city departments or the need for additional
  funding to get all five city cemeteries to a
  point of self-sufficiency

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• Establish an advisory panel of interested
  parties, including
• a member from PARD who has knowledge of the
  budget and current contract
• a representative from InterCare Corporation (the
  current contract holder)
• a representative from the citys Historic
  Preservation Office
• a representative from the Texas Historical
  Commission Cemetery division
• three members at large who would act as
  representatives of the five city cemeteries
• Member 1 Austin Memorial Park
• Member 2 Oakwood and Oakwood Annex
• Member 3 Evergreen and Plummers

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Advisory Panels Purpose

• Free up PARD staff from routine
  dispute/management issues
• Provide a dispute resolution process that better
  informs the public
• Outline a chain of command
• This body would meet at regularly scheduled times
  in an open forum to review the progress of the
  master plan and to receive and review
  recommendations from groups working on the
  established goals. These recommendations would
  then be presented to city council for approval.

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Legal Issues

• Legal issues that need be to researched and
  addressed
• What are the rights of deed/ownership vs. right
  to adorn gravesites?
• Who has responsibility of historic fabric, such
  as monuments and fencing?
• When is a gravesite considered to be abandoned?
  What is the process for declaring a gravesite
  abandoned?
• How does a preservation group gain
  conservatorship of said abandoned gravesite?