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While many of ski country's past is obscured behind new paint, new buildings, and hot restaurants, cemeteries in former frontier towns like Telluride and Park City are a living record of these town's prospecting, mining, and boom town history. We bring you a tour of a few of ski country's most historic cemeteries, including one hosting the body of Ernest Hemingway.
The Ute Cemetery started on a plot of unused private land in the 19th century when a visiting prospector from Texas died upon arrival, and pre-dates the incorporation of Aspen itself. Used mainly for burials of the town's working poor, the cemetery fell out of use during the Great Depression and left over half the 200 graves unmarked. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and work was done to completely restore the cemetery and rehab the popular biking and hiking trails that weave through it. There are reports of another historic cemetery in Pitkin County where the town prostitute was buried in a corner away from the rest of the grave sites.
Telluride's Lone Tree Cemetery has grave sites dating back to the town's mining boom in the 19th century, when rough deaths from avalanches, epidemics of flu, mining accidents, and labor strikes were common.
A minimal walk from the base of Park City Mountain Resort is Glenwood Cemetery, which like Ute in Aspen, is on the National Register of Historic Places for its 19th-century history, and is still an active cemetery today. Unfortunately, last summer a 6-foot tall tombstone fell and killed a young boy, so be careful if you walk around.
South Park Cemetery was started as Jackson Hole's first burial ground during a diphtheria epidemic during the homesteading years in 1891. The Wilsons were a family of Mormons that brought some of the first wagon trains to Jackson Hole in 1889, and brought the first saw mill and plow to the valley. The son and daughter of Sylvester Wilson and Mary Wood Wilson were the first in the homesteading group to die of the diphtheria epidemic, and the cemetery was dedicated to their family.
This cemetery may have the most beautiful plot of our list, situated off the side of the Slate River between the town and the ski mountain. As a still-functioning cemetery, hosts graves from both Crested Butte's early population of miners and the town's more recently deceased.
The Ketchum Cemetery, in the shadows of Sun Valley's Bald Mountain, hosts the grave of Ernest Hemingway, who committed suicide here in the summer of 1961. Hemingway first visited town to give a eulogy at this very cemetery in 1936 for his friend, Gene Van Guilder, who was a publicist for Sun Valley Resort. Hemingway also worked on "For Whom The Bell Tolls" in Room 206 of the Sun Valley Lodge.
The chapel was built in 1955 by the Story family, a lineage of Montana pioneers, whose family member had died in WWII as a member of the 163rd Infantry Regiment in New Guinea. The chapel sits under Lone Mountain, and its cemetery is home to the graves of veterans and locals, along with the cenotaph of Chet Huntley, a newscaster for NBC that helped to found Big Sky Resort.
Steamboat's cemetery has beautiful views of the ski area and hosts the grave sites of many of the pioneers who settled the town in the 19th century. It was the subject of some local controversy in 2011 when it was discovered that William Harvey, a local noted for his bear hunting skills who died in 1914, was also a Civil War veteran on the Confederate side, and local vets announced they would place a Confederate flag on his tombstone.
The plot for Breckenridge's cemetery was originally a mining claim belonging to an early town resident, William McAdoo, and hosts the tombstones of many of the town's most influential residents from its early days, including Edwin Carter and those of the Kaiser family. The Breckenridge Heritage Alliance hosts a Tombstone Tales at Twilight Tour on Friday and Saturday evenings throughout the summer.
As Whistler is such a young town, much of its cemetery remains open, but its layout is thoughtful. There are no tombstones, only ground-level plaques, along with a garden laden with stone structures to house erns, and a walking path through the woods for spreading ashes.
The Ute Cemetery started on a plot of unused private land in the 19th century when a visiting prospector from Texas died upon arrival, and pre-dates the incorporation of Aspen itself. Used mainly for burials of the town's working poor, the cemetery fell out of use during the Great Depression and left over half the 200 graves unmarked. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and work was done to completely restore the cemetery and rehab the popular biking and hiking trails that weave through it. There are reports of another historic cemetery in Pitkin County where the town prostitute was buried in a corner away from the rest of the grave sites.
Telluride's Lone Tree Cemetery has grave sites dating back to the town's mining boom in the 19th century, when rough deaths from avalanches, epidemics of flu, mining accidents, and labor strikes were common.
A minimal walk from the base of Park City Mountain Resort is Glenwood Cemetery, which like Ute in Aspen, is on the National Register of Historic Places for its 19th-century history, and is still an active cemetery today. Unfortunately, last summer a 6-foot tall tombstone fell and killed a young boy, so be careful if you walk around.
South Park Cemetery was started as Jackson Hole's first burial ground during a diphtheria epidemic during the homesteading years in 1891. The Wilsons were a family of Mormons that brought some of the first wagon trains to Jackson Hole in 1889, and brought the first saw mill and plow to the valley. The son and daughter of Sylvester Wilson and Mary Wood Wilson were the first in the homesteading group to die of the diphtheria epidemic, and the cemetery was dedicated to their family.
This cemetery may have the most beautiful plot of our list, situated off the side of the Slate River between the town and the ski mountain. As a still-functioning cemetery, hosts graves from both Crested Butte's early population of miners and the town's more recently deceased.
The Ketchum Cemetery, in the shadows of Sun Valley's Bald Mountain, hosts the grave of Ernest Hemingway, who committed suicide here in the summer of 1961. Hemingway first visited town to give a eulogy at this very cemetery in 1936 for his friend, Gene Van Guilder, who was a publicist for Sun Valley Resort. Hemingway also worked on "For Whom The Bell Tolls" in Room 206 of the Sun Valley Lodge.
The chapel was built in 1955 by the Story family, a lineage of Montana pioneers, whose family member had died in WWII as a member of the 163rd Infantry Regiment in New Guinea. The chapel sits under Lone Mountain, and its cemetery is home to the graves of veterans and locals, along with the cenotaph of Chet Huntley, a newscaster for NBC that helped to found Big Sky Resort.
Steamboat's cemetery has beautiful views of the ski area and hosts the grave sites of many of the pioneers who settled the town in the 19th century. It was the subject of some local controversy in 2011 when it was discovered that William Harvey, a local noted for his bear hunting skills who died in 1914, was also a Civil War veteran on the Confederate side, and local vets announced they would place a Confederate flag on his tombstone.
The plot for Breckenridge's cemetery was originally a mining claim belonging to an early town resident, William McAdoo, and hosts the tombstones of many of the town's most influential residents from its early days, including Edwin Carter and those of the Kaiser family. The Breckenridge Heritage Alliance hosts a Tombstone Tales at Twilight Tour on Friday and Saturday evenings throughout the summer.
As Whistler is such a young town, much of its cemetery remains open, but its layout is thoughtful. There are no tombstones, only ground-level plaques, along with a garden laden with stone structures to house erns, and a walking path through the woods for spreading ashes.