Zoo officials hope to open new exhibit next summer, but first they plan to move about a dozen unmarked graves.
Joseph D. Bryant | [email protected] the zoo plans to add a new cougar exhibit, officials are asking the state for permission to dig up andThe zoo is expanding to add a new cougar exhibit.
The burial ground, formerly known as Red Mountain Cemetery and Southside Cemetery, was abandoned when a graveyard for the indigent opened in Ketona around 1909. A hand-written ledger, housed at Birmingham’s Linn Henley Research Library, lists the names, ages, races, causes of death, and sometimes the supervising physician in charge of the interment. Yet many of the entries are unnamed, simply entered as “unknown.”It is nearly impossible to know which people’s graves will be relocated, as there is no map identifying where individuals are buried.
Kathryn Shoupe, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Historical Commission, said the commission routinely works with cemetery owners, developers, and government agencies to make plans to protect and preserve cemeteries. But until receiving the zoo’s application, the commission has not received a request to relocate graves in at least five years, Shoupe said.
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