Original Iowa Surveryor and Former Des Moines Councilman and Mayor,Ira Cook. The Cook Family headstone. Both photos taken from IowaSurveyor.com.
The Register did a cool story on the Woodland Cemetery Tours and I thought I'd pass along the link. They interview Gerald LeBlanc, Woodland's longtime tour directory (and probably one of the most instrumental people in rehabbing this treasure). In the story, he shares quite a few good tidbits, for instance:
"...The first four people buried on the 53-acre grounds near Woodland Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway were relocated in 1845 from a burial ground downtown at Fourth and Locust streets. Thousands of people followed during the years, until the last lots were sold in the 1920s.
There are still interments every once in a while, but most plot owners already have died."I spend a fair amount of time here and often wonder about this stone or that one. Still, after being in DSM for over 20 years, I haven't taken the tour. I guess I should do that before it's too late!*
*In the even of my untimely death, please do not refer back to this line in conversations about me. If, in fact, you ever do have conversations about me.
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