Double Butte Cemetery

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The Double Butte Cemetery is the official name given to a historic cemetery in Tempe, Arizona. The cemetery was founded in 1888 on the baseline of the Double Butte Mountain for which it is named. It is the final resting place of various notable pioneers of the City of Tempe. The cemetery, which is located at 2505 W. Broadway Rd., is listed in the Tempe Historic Property Register Designation #46. The pioneer section of the cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 30, 2013, reference #13000020.HistoryMany interments, where the present cemetery is located, had already occurred before the official establishment of the cemetery. This fact prompted a group of citizens to form a group called, "Tempe Cemetery Association". The Tempe Cemetery Company, officially established the cemetery on September 13, 1887. The property was donated by Niels Peterson in 1888. Peterson himself was buried there until 1923, when he was exhumed and re-interned in the property where his historic house is located. The location was chosen not only because of its seclusion, since it is situated several miles from the town (Tempe was not considered a "city" at the time) limits, but because the buttes served as a prominent geographical marker. The officers of the Tempe Cemetery Company formed the first corporate entity to administer the cemetery. The first section to be professionally developed by the Tempe Cemetery Company, was the “Pioneer Section” located adjacent to earlier, pre-1897 burials.For the next decade, Double Butte grew to become Tempe’s primary burial place. The economic situation in the 1920s and 30's also had its effects on the cemetery. The Tempe Cemetery Company was in dire financial straits, and the cemetery itself suffered immensely as a result. Many of the graves were sunken and the area around them, such as the trees and grass, began to die because of lack of water and care. In 1958, the City of Tempe assumed the obligations to operate the cemetery. After sixty years of private, volunteer-organization management, the Tempe Double Butte Cemetery fell under the administration by the City of Tempe. It remains under city ownership and administration to this day.