Central City and It's Cemeteries

The final of three posts focused on our day long family adventure in Central City, Gilpin County, Colorado and the surrounding area. We explored the Masonic Cemetery, the downtown area featuring multiple fraternal lodges, and finally the historic cemeteries of Central City. There are six cemeteries within walking distance of each other, including the Knights of Pythias, the Catholic Cemetery and the I.O.O.F.

A few select images from that afternoon of exploring to share.

All images ©Jen Baldwin, 2014. 

Knights of Pythias Cemetery

Turn around from the gate, and this is what you see.

The view of the Catholic Cemetery from the gate of the Knights
of Pythias Cemetery.

We found these wooden markers in the Central City Cemetery, one was more readable than the others. 

The Central City Catholic Cemetery

What appears to be the main gate is chained and locked. 

The human entrance is to the left of the main gate seen above.
Up and over the fence! 

My family going over the stairs. They did also have a memorial
plaque on one side, recognizing a local couple. 

The original main gate is still intact, about 20 yards inside the current
fence. The wooden frame, sign and the actual gate is all that's left. 

These are three sisters, all very young at time of death, and all had a
peeled onion in front of the headstone. 

This round brick structure is in a far back corner of the cemetery, which
covers a fairly large piece of property. There was once a cross on the top according
to one source I was able to locate. 

The original use of this structure appears to be unknown, even by the
local historical society, though there are a few theories floating around. 

We have these metal pipes with wooden stake in the Valley Brook Cemetery
in Breckenridge, also. In Breck, they are used to mark the borders of the various sections
of the cemetery, but there didn't appear to be any obvious reason for them
here in Central City. We only found them around a handful of family plots. 

Although this wooden marker is not in the pipe, it was very obvious
that's where it was intended to be. This was the only other pipe we found
with the wooden stake still in it or nearby.