Oakland Cemetery

Story

The Oakland Cemetery is a 40acre public cemetery maintained by the city of Fort Dodge, Iowa, United States. Property for the cemetery was set aside in 1859. It was laid out the same year by Egbert Bagg, an architect and civil engineer from Utica, New York. The graves and monuments are arranged around the natural contours of the hills that overlook Soldier Creek in a natural park-like setting. It is considered a good and rare example of a rural cemetery in North Central Iowa. It has been listed as an historic district on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000.Its notable resources include: a Civil War memorial monument created by a local sculptor and Civil War veteran, William Pollock.a Potter's Fieldseven tree stump grave markers, which indicate a life cut shortgrave of Major William Williams, founder of Fort Dodge, who died in 1874graves of two black Civil War soldiers, with markers provided by the U.S. Government in years before 2003, with metal military marker and small cloth American flag. These are for "Joseph Kinner, Co H, 1 USCI, 1890," and "Joseph A. Palmer, Serg Co F, 54 Mass Inf.grave of Dr. Thomas Fitzhugh Grayson, who practiced medicine in Fort Dodge for many years after serving in the Confederate Army's 8th Virginia Infantry, and who died in 1903, andtablet inscribed with "Faithful Colored Servant" at grave of Agnes Grayson, a servant in the home of the Dolliver family, who died in 1935.

"Historic Oakland Cemetery is Atlanta’s oldest public park and the final resting place of many of the city’s most noted citizens. Less than a mile from downtown, its 48 acres are full of treasures – history and gardens, sculpture and architecture, ancient oaks and magnolias. It’s a wedding venue, a green space, an art gallery, a classroom space, and a place to celebrate the city’s rich and fascinating past and future."