Grave Matters: The Story of a City as Told Through its Cemetery

The story of a city is the story of its people. However, the stories of ordinary people — people who are marginalized, people who are neither rich, powerful, influential, or famous — these stories tend to get left out of history books and are often forgotten even by their descendants. In south Minneapolis, there exists a community of just such forgotten and overlooked individuals — all of them deceased. This is Pioneer & Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Minneapolis and the final resting place for over 22,000 average citizens buried between 1853 and 1919.
The life stories of this cemetery’s occupants provide a fascinating and diverse cross-section of Minneapolis history from the city’s founding until its emergence as a major metropolis. Join Alex Weston from Hennepin History Museum for this guided walking tour that will highlight forgotten individuals in order to reconstruct a history of Minneapolis from the ground up via the lives of its everyday residents.
Cost: $20; Hennepin History Museum members save $5.
Content Warning: this tour deals with sensitive topics including death, depression, infant and maternal mortality, poverty, racism and racial violence, slavery, suicide, and war.
Accessibility: The tour will consist of approximately 90 minutes of walking. Although there are no hills or inclines, the cemetery ground is fairly bumpy and uneven and may not be accessible to all. Please wear appropriate footwear.