Kennecott Cemetery: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve

Ferreira, S; Gewalt, Dinah

The Kennecott Cemetery is a component landscape of the Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark. It is located a quarter mile south from the Kennecott Mill Town site, within the boundaries of Wrangell‑St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. The cemetery is accessed by the old Wagon Road, the original access road for the Kennecott Mill Town before the railroad was completed in 1911. This road has also been referred to as the South Glacier Trail. The site boundaries include all known historic features and relevant landscape characteristics within the cemetery associated with the settlement and social history of Kennecott. Contributing features include fifty grave markers, subterranean structures, fences and a few small scale features including metal buckets, a ladder, and a shovel. The period of significance for the Kennecott Cemetery is 1908 to 1938. 1908 is the earliest date found on a grave marker in the Kennecott Cemetery. While the Kennecott Mill Town site had already begun to develop in earnest by this date, 1908 marks the beginning of the first major era of development at the mill town. 1938 marks the closure of the Kennecott Mines, and also is the last date to be found on a grave marker in the cemetery. Thus the cemetery’s period of significance roughly corresponds to the three decades of Kennecott’s early development and abandonment. The landscape is significant for its contributions to the broad trends of history. The site’s buildings, structures and objects together represent a funerary landscape that spans over three decades of historic activity. As the exclusive burial grounds for those living and working for the Kennecott Mining Corporation, the Kennecott Cemetery is directly related to the historic development of the Kennecott Mines and Mill Town. Burials began in the early days of settlement at Kennecott and continued until the mine closed in 1938, thus providing information about the social history and cultural practices of a thriving company mining town over time. The entire population of people who are buried at the Kennecott Cemetery were buried there on the basis that their families could not afford to have the body shipped back to their homeland, the individual did not have any reference contacts, or the individual’s family was at the time living at Kennecott, and wanted their grave site nearby. Those interred at the cemetery often met their end from hazardous endeavors associated with mining at Kennecott. Also of note is the fact that those interred represent a remarkably diverse population in terms of ethnicity, but the graves are not segregated based on race, religion, age or gender. While not directly linked with mining activity, the cemetery was nonetheless an important aspect of the community of Kennecott, and endures as a social symbol and physical reminder of the people who lived and worked at Kennecott throughout its history.

Kennecott Cemetery: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve

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