Pioneer and Military Memorial Park - History

PCA Newsletter Archives

As seen on the website of the Pioneers' Cemetery Association:  

"the Pioneer and Military memorial Park (PMMP) is located at 1317 West Jefferson in Phoenix.  The cemeteries at this location were not the first in Phoenix. During the 1870's, when Phoenix was still a small settlement, burials took place in the 'old' city cemetery which was located approximately between Fifth and Seventh Avenues and Jackson and Madison Streets, near the downtown train station. After Phoenix incorporated as a city on February 25, 1881, citizens and community leaders became concerned that train passengers' first glimpse of Phoenix was a cemetery "right at the door of our beautiful city and in the most irregular, dilapidated, and disgraceful condition...a disgrace to the town" [Daily Herald, 27 May 1884].

To remedy the problem, the fraternal orders of the city purchased Block 32, Neahr's Addition, keeping the east half to establish their own cemeteries and selling the west half to others for cemetery use. Families moved their loved ones from the old cemetery to the new one, and the City reburied the unclaimed bodies in a common grave.

The Pioneer & Military Memorial Park is comprised of seven historic cemeteries which were in use between 1884 and 1914.  they are City Loosley, Masons, K. of P., A.O.U.W., I.O.O.F, Porter, and Rosedale,  After a law forbidding further burials within city limits went into effect in 1914, the cemeteries were declared closed. They fell into disrepair until private citizens rallied decades later to restore them.

       
In May 1988, the seven historic cemeteries were officially designated as the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park with the dedication of the Avenue of Flags and the new fence. Over the years, visitors from all over the United States and several foreign countries have come to pay their respects to Phoenix's pioneers. Among the notables buried here are Darrell Duppa, King Woolsey and Jacob Waltz."

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