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This Wherigo takes you on a short tour of Highland Cemetery. Highland Cemetery is considered private property and is owned by St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Explicit permission was granted for the placement of this geocache. Permission was granted with the idea that we will be respectful and police ourselves and our game. At the first sign of any issues or damage related to our game, including caching outside of official cemetery hours, this geocache will be archived without question and without delay. While burials no longer take place here, descendants and relatives DO live in the area and DO visit their loved ones. Please show respect, whether others are around or whether you're here alone.
CEMETERY HOURS: 8AM TO dusk. It would be better for our game if you follow the posted hours.
The final cache is hidden somewhere within two miles of the listed coordinates. But in order to score the goods, you will need to complete the tour at Historic Highland Cemetery.
The Highland Cemetery, originally named St. Joseph's Cemetery, was established in 1868 at the same time the first St. Joseph's Catholic Church was built at the intersection of Dodd and Pilot Knob Roads. In 1880, a cyclone destroyed all of the church but the bell. The church was rebuilt in downtown Rosemount, its location today. Traveling back to the country cemetery proved a hardship so in 1885, the parish started a new cemetery in town across the street from the church. At that time, the old cemetery before you here was renamed the Highland Cemetery.
The original cemetery records have been lost. Gerald Mattson, voluntary cemetery caretaker during the 1970's and 1980's, re-created records for the Highland Cemetery. Mr. Mattson believes there are at least 260 people buried at the cemetery. Most were Irish or Irish-American and over half died before reaching the age of thirty.
The cemetery has been neglected for most of its existence. In 1998, the cemetery owner, St. Joseph's Catholic Church, commenced a "clean-up" which included the removal of the front fence and gate, the palings at three family plots, and dozens of gravestones. The removal of the historic features and the loss of gravestones dismayed many descendants which spawned the Friends of Highland Cemetery organization.
By 2000, the cemetery faced new dangers as the Twin Cities suburbs reach this part of rural Dakota County. In 2001, Pilot Knob Road in front of the cemetery had been rebuilt as a four lane divided highway. The cemetery parking on Pilot Knob was eliminated. By 2005, the farm fields and sand quarry surrounding the Highland Cemetery were replaced with hundreds of housing units. And soon a strip mall will be seen in the immediate area.
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Download Historic Highland Cemetery
This cartridge has been tested using an online Wherigo player and an Android smartphone. Check out what player is available to you by searching your smartphone's app store for "Wherigo."
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 What is Wherigo?
For those of you who don't know, Wherigo was created as a means to introduce the adventure game concept into geocaching by making it easy for anyone to create and play location-based adventures in the real world. Using Wherigo, the physical world becomes the background for engaging story lines and location-specific virtual entertainment.
Wherigo is a platform that allows you to build location based GPS experiences on your computer and play them in the real world. Rather than searching for puzzle clues on a screen, you look for them in the field. Using Wherigo, you can create interactive tours, adventure games and puzzles... the possibilities are endless.
How can I play this Cartridge?
First off, you'll need the appropriate Wherigo Player on a Wherigo compatible Hardware (Pocket PC, Garmin Oregon or Colorado GPS, Android Smartphone, or iPhone).
If you do not have one already, click on the links to the right to download the one you need. Once you have a player, you just need to download the cartridge for that player. You can do that by clicking on the title banner above or the top link to the right.
For more information on getting started, check out this link. There you'll find tutorials and FAQs to help you out.
How can I build a Cartridge?
This cartridge was built using earwigo.net, which is one of the more popular Wherigo builders. It is a web based tool and offers a comprehensive cartridge building toolset. The interface centers around the concept of events and requires some, but not a lot, of programming experience. In fact, process flow is more important to understand than the programming. Just do a google search for it and take it from there.
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