Thank you for visiting Elko's cemetery complex. Tread lightly and be sure to put the cache back exactly where you found it so as not to disturb its urban camouflague.
Here is an excerpt from an Elko Daily Free Press interview of Elko historian Jan Petersen, where she explains this part of the cemetery:
Petersen led the way to the northernmost part of the cemetery, a square of land at Eighth Street and Fairgrounds Road. “This is the other Veterans’ Cemetery and the bottom part is for the Catholic Church,” Petersen noted. “But the first guys there fought in the Civil War. So you have Civil War veterans, you have every conflict veteran.”
A few graves are covered with Chinese characters.
“This property here, over to the fairgrounds and down to the City Park, was owned by a group of Chinese guys who had worked with the Central Pacific Railroad. And then when the railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, these guys were laid off on May 11, May 12. Mining was booming here in Nevada, so they drifted back here and they lived down where Living Stones Church is.”
“And then they pooled their money together and bought this huge chunk of property and they used it as a cemetery in those days up to about World War I, 1918, 1920. The practice was for Chinese people to be buried in the dirt and then after a length of time, especially in the rural areas, they would disinterment the bodies – dig them up. And they would put the bodies in redwood boxes and ship them back to China.”
Shoshone graves can also be found in this section of the cemetery. Petersen explained that the Shoshone people traditionally bury their dead to face the rising sun, a tradition which continues in the cemetery.
“So at the end of my tours, when I give one, and especially for kids,” Petersen said, “I have them all raise their hands and I swear them in to be good cemetery stewards. And it gives people a sense of ownership, that there is some respect involved here.”
“We have a lot of people who died during the flu epidemic in 1918, 1919 and 1920. There are a couple over here that are in Japanese. Those guys worked in railroad gangs,” Petersen explained as she pointed to more gravestones. “Everybody has a story – the good, the bad, the ugly.”
“It is something we just need to care for and honor and preserve.”