Union Cemetery

Union Cemetery was founded in 1857 by the Missouri General Assembly as a private shareholder corporation, the Union Cemetery Assembly. The cemetery was opened for the joint use of the neighboring towns of Kansas and Westport after both communities were ravaged by a cholera epidemic in 1849. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the cemetery fell into disrepair and engaged in unethical burial practices, including mass graves and racial segregation. A campaign of public outcry lasting until the 1930s led to a change in leadership and declaration of city park status. Since 1984, the cemetery has been managed by a non-profit organization known as the Union Cemetery Historical Society. Maintenance for the cemetery is handled by the Kansas City Parks & Recreation department. It is estimated that the cemetery serves as the final resting place for over 55,000 souls. Though people are no longer buried there due to limited space, the cemetery remains open to the interment of cremated remains, and local community members are encouraged to use the cemetery for outdoor recreation.

In the heart of downtown Kansas City, under the shadow of the Liberty Memorial, lies a 27 acre piece of land known as Union Cemetery. Urban explorers may wander through this field, enjoying the shady trees and pondering the many grave markers. Many may wonder at some of the more dilapidated headstones. This speaks to a central truth of this site: though the utility of this cemetery is clear to any observer, the history and significance of this landmark remains a mystery to many.

In the 1850s, the neighboring towns of Kansas and Westport faced a dilemma. The 1849 cholera epidemic had ravaged both communities and filled their respective cemeteries, which consisted primarily of church graveyards and two small public cemeteries, Westport Cemetery in Westport and the City Cemetery in the town of Kansas. As the towns recovered and continued to expand in both population and area, the city leaders searched for additional burial space. To help this issue, the Missouri General Assembly created the for-profit Union Cemetery Assembly. Some of the assembly’s founding members included then-mayor of Kansas City and President of the Cemetery Assembly Milton J. Payne, treasurer William Bernard, superintendent William Todd, and a local farmer and Westport merchant named James M. Hunter. This last man was responsible for deeding the original 49 acres upon which the cemetery was established. This acreage rested squarely between the two towns it sought to accommodate, with Westport to the south and the City of Kansas to the north. Once established, many families moved their deceased loved ones from the old cemeteries in Westport and the City of Kansas to Union Cemetery. Parts of the cemetery were also set aside as a potter’s field, a place for indigent or unidentified persons to be buried. Though anyone could purchase a plot for themselves or their family, the cemetery was intentionally segregated along racial lines. The Assembly assumed that Union Cemetery would be large enough to provide for the towns’ burial needs for all time, since the population of the City of Kansas was only 4,000 in 1857. However, by 1900 the city’s population had grown to over 164,000.

Initially, the Union Cemetery Assembly focused on beautifying the cemetery and turning it into a public park. An 1873 article from the Kansas City Times noted that “The company devotes every dollar realized [...] to improvement of the grounds, and have thus far never realized one dollar of benefit from it.” Plans for the cemetery included lakes, walking paths, a streetcar, and roads. The Assembly also had spent $3,000 constructing a public receiving vault, capable of storing up to 40 coffins awaiting burial. This attention to detail would not stand the test of time. In the summer of 1889, the cottage inhabited by the sexton of the cemetery burned down. The fire destroyed all records from Union Cemetery’s first 32 years of operation, making it impossible for the numerous unmarked graves and heavily weathered headstones to ever be identified. This spelled the beginning of the cemetery’s descent into neglect and disrepair.

By 1910, maintenance for the cemetery had fallen to the wayside. According to some reports, mass graves hid piles of corpses inches below ground, remains could be viewed simply by walking through the cemetery, and a rotten stench permeated the air. The Union Cemetery Assembly was at this point headed by a group of shareholders that included the children of former Assembly President Milton Payne, who had passed away in 1900. Kansas City had spread steadily southward, eventually annexing the town of Westport and fully encircling the cemetery. The construction of Union Station, which opened in 1914, brought the city’s attention to the unhygienic conditions of the cemetery. The Kansas City municipality made two moves in the summer of 1910. First, it passed an ordinance that banned all burials in the city center, which essentially only applied to Union Cemetery. Second, the city seized the northeastern corner of the cemetery for the construction of McGee Trafficway, via the right of eminent domain. In recent years this move has been viewed unfavorably, as some accounts say that this area was where poor citizens, especially African Americans, were buried. However, there is no hard evidence of this claim.

In 1916, the shareholders of Union Cemetery sold 19 acres of the cemetery’s northwest corner to raise funds for the maintenance of the cemetery for the improvement of their public image. That same year, several of those same shareholders formed a company under a different name: the Evergreen Land Company. Using this new name, they took out a loan from the Fidelity National Bank and Trust Company to purchase those same 19 acres for $20,000.  The land was then divided and sold separately for a total of $600,000. Coupled with a municipal seizure, this sale decreased the cemetery’s area to 27 acres, where it remains today. The families of those interred at the cemetery were outraged. In 1924, the inflamed families filed a lawsuit against the Union Cemetery Assembly, claiming that this sale was evidence of “collusion, fraud and conspiracy.” The plaintiffs were primarily upset that the Assembly was personally profiting off the sale and thought the money should be reinvested into the cemetery’s upkeep. In their defense, the Evergreen Company and the Cemetery Assembly argued that Union Cemetery was a private company that had private jurisdiction, and it was up to the families to maintain their loved ones’ graves. In the 1927 hearing, the judge ruled in favor of the defense but advised the Evergreen Company to donate the proceeds from the original sale for the upkeep of the cemetery. Evergreen agreed and donated $50,000 to Union Cemetery.

In 1934, a committee of preservationists, including many descendants of city founders buried in Union Cemetery, petitioned both the city and the Union Cemetery Assembly. Their goal was for the city to purchase and subsequently maintain the cemetery. In 1936, the Assembly voted to deed the cemetery to the city, which declared it a public park in 1937. Since then, the cemetery has been maintained by the Kansas City Missouri Parks & Recreation Department. In 1984, an architect with KCMO Parks & Recreation, E.F. Corwin, took possession of the cemetery’s records. When he noticed that the earliest records were missing, he placed a notice in The Kansas City Star to ask for help rebuilding the records from the descendants of those buried at the cemetery. Those who responded to Corwin’s call to action went on to form the Union Cemetery Historical Society in that same year. Under the guidance of KCMO Parks & Recreation, the Union Cemetery Historical Society aimed to “collect data about historic Union Cemetery and to gather biographical information about the people buried here.” Its duties have since expanded to protecting the grounds and records of the cemetery alongside the Parks & Recreation department.

The history of Union Cemetery is anything but simple. From complicated land-use agreements to reports of mass graves, this site’s story is as fascinating as it is sordid. Today, locals are not just allowed but encouraged to wander the cemetery and use it as a public recreation space. History enthusiasts can find the graves of numerous important figures in local and national history, including businessman Alexander Majors and artist & politician George Caleb Bingham.

Adler, Eric. “‘A Public Disgrace’: The Forgotten Desecration of Bodies at Kansas City Union Cemetery.” The Kansas City Star, March 26, 2023. https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article272888350.html.

Kansas City Parks & Recreation. “Union Cemetery.” kcparks.org. Accessed October 5, 2023. https://kcparks.org/places/union-cemetery-12/.

King, Judith, and Bruce Mathews. Kansas City’s Historic Union Cemetery. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books, 2014.

Martin City Telegraph. “Two Former Cemeteries Tell a Story of Kansas City’s Past.” Martin City Telegraph, September 2, 2019. https://martincitytelegraph.com/2019/09/02/two-former-cemeteries-tell-a-story-of-kansas-citys-past/.

Union Cemetery Historical Society. “History | Union Cemetery Historical Society of Kansas City, Missouri.” Accessed October 6, 2023. https://www.uchskc.org/history/.