10 Disturbing Cemeteries in Utah That Will Give You Goosebumps

You might consider them creepy places, or quiet, peaceful places of rest. Regardless of what you think about cemeteries, these just might give you goosebumps.

1) Logan Cemetery

Visit Logan Cemetery at midnight when there’s a full moon; the large “Weeping Woman” statue is rumored to cry.

2) Grafton Cemetery

Grafton, now a ghost town, was founded in 1861. Life was harsh in Southern Utah in the 1860s. In 1866, thirteen people died: five children and a young woman died of diphtheria; two little girls died when their swing broke; a man and his wife and brother were killed by Navajo natives; two babies died of scarlet fever and one woman died of unknown causes. There’s an estimated 84 graves in Grafton -- many are now unmarked.

3) Mercur Cemetery, Tooele County

The cemetery in this Tooele county ghost town is supposedly haunted. People report hearing screams and voices. You’ll find unmarked graves of miners and their family members (including many children) there.

4) Ogden City Cemetery, Monroe Blvd.

Established in 1851, this cemetery is haunted by 15-year-old Florence Grange, who died when she choked on a piece of candy. Drive past Flo’s grave and blink your headlights; she’ll appear and approach your car.

5) Ephraim Pioneer Cemetery

This cemetery has an interesting Old West history. Its first resident was a settler who was living in Fort Ephraim when he died in 1854. The fort did not include a cemetery, so the settlers got permission to inter Mr. Manwaring in nearby Allred Settlement. However, they ended up hastily digging a grave outside Fort Ephraim when they heard news of imminent Indian attack. The cemetery houses many children, seven settlers who died during an 1865 Indian massacre, and another seven who died of drowning in 1878.

6) Silver Reef Old Catholic Cemetery, near Leeds

Visitors to this little cemetery report hearing the voices of children, asking to be taken home.

7) Aultorest Memorial Park, 36th Street

Some of the headstones in the cemetery are said to be continually warm — so much so that snow melts off them in the winter.

8) Pleasant Green Cemetery, Magna

Established in 1883, this old cemetery on the hill overlooking Magna occasionally has an extra-creepy atmosphere -- many of the headstones glow when a train passes by.

9) Salt Lake City Cemetery

Located in the Avenues between “N” and “U” streets, this cemetery is a popular spot for dog walkers and joggers. The first person buried in the cemetery was a little girl named Mary B. Wallace, who was interred on September 27, 1847. However, she’s not the most famous resident -- that distinction goes to Lilly Edith Gray, whose gravestone reads, “”Victim of the Beast 666.” No one is sure why her husband Elmer had that spooky epitaph engraved -- Lilly was an 78-year-old woman who, by all accounts, lived a perfectly normal life. Lilly’s obituary notes that she died of “natural causes.” Elmer was an eccentric fellow who may have suffered from some psychological issues. At the very least, he had a quirky sense of humor.

10) Widtsoe Cemetery, near Antimony

Now a ghost town, Widstoe was originally settled in the late 1800s.

http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/utah/cemeteries-in-utah/

Great list! I love stuff like this and will put this on my list of things to see in Utah.

While in Provo I visited Provo City Cemetery because I had never been to a "Mormon" cemetery. All those temples and other symbolism was enough to creep me out. :oP

I haven't been to Provo Cemetery *yet.* Maybe someday...

When visiting Utah until last week (just one week ago I returned home,) I was able to visit the original Ogden, old Salt Lake City, and Leavitt cemeteries in Ogden and SLC. Leavitt's is kitty corner from the Aultorest one mentioned above.

Not at night though. ((((shudders))))

My maternal grandparents are buried inside a mausoleum at the Leavitt cemetery in Ogden. Its walls are lined with crypts of the long and not so long departed. It does seem strange and creepy to be the only 'living' soul inside the mausoleum, surrounded by the now decomposed bodies all around. When my grandparents made their pre-burial plans it was then and may still be now, a mostly non-Mormon mausoleum inside the cemetery. Where those who wanted to be cremated or have other last rites not found in Mormon religious rites, found a safe haven and last refuge for their resting place.

My mom and stepdad are buried outside on the grounds.

Then I got to visit my great great grandpa's in Ogden. Something I'd not done before. Once I found his tombstone, I learned it was a family monument for not only him and his two wives, but for his mother, stepdad, and several of his children, their spouses, grandchildren, etc. He was one of Ogden's earliest pioneers.

My Jewish great grandmothers in one of the Jewish cemeteries in the old Salt Lake cemetery was another stop on my trip. That was another first for me. It looks like my grandmother had paid to have some nice memorial markers placed where they're buried, so I was glad to finally be able to see where they were laid to rest.

The Grafton pioneer cemetery mentioned above as one of the creepy cemeteries, isn't really. At least not in daylight. I passed by it when visiting Springdale, Utah last year. It is not the oldest pioneer cemetery there in Springdale. There's another, lesser known (including by the locals,) that is even older than that one where my pioneer ancestors are buried along with several other of the earliest Springdale families to settle there. That one is known as "Moquitch Hill." It looks like something out of an old Western movie - with the wild sagebrush growing around the tombstones, and set on a lonely hilltop, surrounded by Zion's mountain peaks.

I was able to visit another Mormon pioneer cemetery on the Idaho side right over the Utah line, by Bear Lake, where I have a great grandpa buried and his infant daughter. There was no marker for his grave or hers. I did find a headstone for another (Mormon pioneer) ancestor who was with Joseph Smith in his final days, and a bodyguard, Isaac Hill. He had a special tombstone with a Mormon 'pioneer' heritage marker next to his name, probably placed there by who else but the Mormons.

My great grandpa without the marker will have one if I get my way. He was a Civil War veteran, so is eligible for a free headstone by the Veteran's Administration. I'm just waiting on his war records from National Archives to send in with my paperwork to Virginia to order him one, at no cost to me or my family. That was awesome to find out while on my trip. It cost me a delay of 1-2 days while in Bear Lake country, but was worth the 'lost' time. I feel it was meant to be.

I'd just learned about the free grave marker the week before when it came up after visiting my dad's grave. He had one from WWII service. My stepsister was asking me about, and I looked into it for her so I could give her an answer why he had an extra tombstone my stepmother didn't. Spouses and children aren't eligible, only the veterans are. That's how I learned I could order one for great grandpa.

Fortuity and serendipity are cousins indeed. :)

I haven't registered yet but will when I can think up an appropriate moniker. Intrigued by your post as my great great grandmother was a Leavitt from Ogden. Her name was Lucinda. Now I'll have to go and see the Leavitt cemetery. Did you know there is a town called Leavitt in Southern Alberta and those Leavitts tie into the Leavitts in Ogden. Small world.

No, I did not know this.

You should check it out, if only to see whether you are related to the same family, and if your great great grandmother is buried there or somewhere else.

The woman who helped direct me to my mom and stepdad's graves when I was there last week was the same woman who attended at my mom's funeral in 2000. She didn't look as though she'd hardly aged in the intervening 16 years! She looked almost the same then as she does now. That seemed a little on the el creepy side being it's a funeral home and all. Otherwise, more power to her... :)

(Like the Eagles song goes... "You can enter any time you like, but you can never leave....") Mwahaahaahaaha..

“Leavitt's is kitty corner from the Aultorest one mentioned above.”

Just to be clear, Aultorest and Leavitt’s are the same cemetery on 36th Street. Leavitt is the family that owns the cemetery and on-site mortuary, and decades ago the owner coined the term “All-to-rest” or Aultorest for the cemetery. The northwest edge of Aultorest cemetery does include the older Mountain View Cemetery with upright headstones (according to Weber County genweb, this was annexed by Aultorest in the 1940s).

“My maternal grandparents are buried inside a mausoleum at the Leavitt cemetery in Ogden. Its walls are lined with crypts of the long and not so long departed. It does seem strange and creepy to be the only 'living' soul inside the mausoleum, surrounded by the now decomposed bodies all around.”

I’ve been in that mausoleum many times. It’s definitely a unique building with the art deco facade, and I like the marble-lined corridors upstairs. Sadly parts of it are not maintained well (especially the lower level where the roof is constantly leaking). It also looks kind of cheap that they put up a wooden case for urn niches. The large main floor area was designed to be used as a small chapel, but at some point the owners decided to place a niche structure in the middle of the room, rendering it unusable for a memorial service.

“When my grandparents made their pre-burial plans it was then and may still be now, a mostly non-Mormon mausoleum inside the cemetery.”

It’s true that Leavitt’s serves mostly a non-mo clientele, but there are still plenty of mos buried on the grounds and entombed in the old mausoleum. On that note, you know how occasionally someone on this forum mentions avoiding using TBMs for professional services (to avoid the recipient remitting 10% of that to TSCC)? If you’re in the Ogden area and need mortuary and cemetery services, I’d recommend Leavitt’s partly for the fact that less (if any) of the money you’ll pay there will find its way into TSCC’s coffers.

Thanks for making that distinction for me. When I was visiting Ogden last week and would stop to ask directions to Leavitt's, passersby would give me directions to both as though they were distinct and separate. The locals who provided directions didn't' know they were one and the same. That's strange considering how long it's been a part of the Ogden fabric. One shop owner said they were on opposite sides of the street lol.

So my mom and her husband are buried on the grounds of Leavitt's Aultorest cemetery, with the parklike surroundings. And her parents are interred in the mausoleum known as "Mount Ogden Mausoleum" @ Leavitt's Mortuary. They've opened a newer mausoleum since then and still a work in progress called the Crystal Mausoleum.

They're both pretty elegant as far as architecture goes. I like where my grandparents were interred. They're in the marble lined corridors. I didn't know that about the leaky roof. Ick! The place where they've added the part to commemorate the cremated remains of loved ones was an afterthought. Pictures and other objects decorate that along with the urns as part of the display. I stopped to look at some of them, out of curiosity and to pay my respects while there.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13238973_10209311217274665_2494973763815924327_n.jpg?oh=bd8fe05db156226575887b9475788aec&oe=57D9607C

For a really spooky experience, do the Walk of the Prophets in SLC cemetery! (The sextant's office will give you a map.) Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are not buried there, everyone else is.

And, just a reminder, no public urination in the cemetery! The Boner.

I'm looking at the map, the sexton's office gave me during my visit, with a packet of other materials. There's 39 graves in total for the LDS Leaders tour of the cemetery grounds. Eliza Snow is buried next to Brigham Young between A Street and State Street, South Temple and 1st Ave it says. Brigham's 'favorite' wife Amelia Folsom is buried in the SLC cemetery. Wonder why there and not next to him, instead of Eliza? She achieved her own prominence in her time, being wives of both him and JS, and church hymnist. Yuck. What a horrible legacy!

I wonder just how much of a 'problem' urinating on graves repeesents on the graves of the unholy alliance?

It may pose too great a temptation for the lesser endowed!

Some of the other "notables" buried in the SLC cemetery:

- Jack Slade - Teamster gunfighter turned into an Overland Stage Co. Enforcer "still waiting for the stage to Carlisle"

- Hirum BeBee- A.K.A. "Sundance Kid"

- Porter Rockwell and Shadrack Roundy - bodyguards to Brigham Young and known for their ability to use both a 6 gun and a cane...

- Lester F. Wire - Inventor of the Traffic Light. So all of us that get stopped by the red light can thank Mr. Wire.

- Along with many, many, more."

(source: SLC Cemetery 1847-Present)

We did the walk of the prophets many years ago. At that time, had stopped attending and didn't believe anymore. When I got to Kimball's grave I thought, thanks for your stupid teachings on sexuality, you messed up my life a lot. When I got to McConkie's grave (fairly new at the time) I thought, so how how'd you explain to St. Peter your teachings that the Catholic Church was the great whore of the world and the Protestants were the daughters of the whore? Seriously, what struck me was that these guys were DEAD, just like the rest of us will be someday.

There was nothing spiritual about the walk, it's just a walk in a cemetery with dead people. But trust the Morg to brand it as "The Walk of the Prophets."

As to Eliza R. Snow, right on her grave marker is her name Eliza Snow Smith--no doubts about Joseph's relationship to her!

I should add, I'd wager, that many of the graves have received their share of urine over the years!

"repeesents" Was that deliberate, or an unintentionally hilarious typo?

I'll let your conscience be yer guide on that one. ;)

Maybe I was having an epeephany when I wrote it!

:D

I've been to the Ephraim Pioneer cemetery at night. It is a little eerie, but nothing special. If anything its a way to get girls to cling a little close. :) I had some good times going to college at Snow.

Grafton is just up the road from me. I have driven through it several times, but never stopped. I might have to go when it cools down and the rattlesnakes go back into hibernation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2016 03:46PM by scaredhusband.

When I visited Moquitch Hill behind the post office and LDS church in downtown Springdale, the rattlers were in hibernation. Otherwise there were snake holes like all over the god forsaken landscape. (Only god forsaken on the hilltop, the views of the mountains surrounding are as you know, 'to die for.')

Hard to imagine how dreary it was for the earliest settlers there with just dusty wagon trails, log houses here and there, and no services or amenities like what we're accustomed to nowadays. It must have felt forsaken to them, if not for their strong faith that helped them to overcome many hardships.

Any creepy ones in Idaho??

None that comes to mind.

Maybe Utah gets the prize for creepy! :)

"Something about closed doors
spurs
the imagination
to invent stories
- a door
on a gravestone,
a door to a
sorority house,
a door to a tunnel...

Emo. They've come up from Bluffdale. "We got bored," says Colette, "so we came up to find this Emo guy." John and Colette step over the low brick wall and go in search of Emo. A few minutes later, they come hightailing out. "Someone's up there!" says Colette. Thor, the commander of the commandoes, chuckles as he strokes the blonde ponytail emerging from the rear-opening of his blue baseball cap.

"We come up here a couple times a month to scare people," he says. "We hide behind the gravestones then jump out at them." A few minutes later, Dewey and Tico come roaring down a cemetery road in their security vehicle and throw their spotlight toward Emo's grave. Two guys in T-shirts leap the wall and sprint down Q Street.

"Dumb asses," says Damon. "You don't wear white in a cemetery."

DEATH: THE REALITY
Emo is really Jacob Moritz, a German Jew who came to Utah in 1871. He built the Salt Lake Brewery. By 1883 he was fermenting more hops and malt than anybody in the Intermountain West. In 1887 he was a charter member of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1902 Moritz, Republican and brewer, ran for state senate against Simon Bamberger, Democrat and teetotaler.

The Salt Lake Herald Tribune backed Bamberger, calling him an oak tree and Moritz a poisonous "jimpson weed." Also supported by the usually Republican Mormons, Bamberger won easily.

Moritz fell ill in 1910 and returned to Germany for medical treatment. He died soon thereafter, and his ashes were returned to Salt Lake for internment.

Today, Moritz's grave shows signs of vandalism. The grass within the 12x12-foot plot has been trampled: amber shards of a Budweiser bottle tilt against the base of the monument. Someone has etched "SLAYER" into the brass door. Fragments of a black marble urn lie on a shelf behind the grate above the door. You can see "COB MORIT" on the largest of the five fragments. On a smaller fragment, you can barely decipher "IED 1910." Twined in the grate is a wilted red rose. But the ashes of Jacob Moritz, according to Ralph Tannenbaum of Congregation Kol Ami, were removed sometime ago to a safer resting place.

THE ALLURE OF LEGENDS

On my visits to City Cemetery, I often wondered why Moritz's monument, of all the thousands in the cemetery, has become a locus of legend. The last time that I was there, I kept staring at the "M" embossed on the brass door. Dusk was falling, and Dewey and Tico would soon be making a sweep of the cemetery. Then, it hit me: It's the damn door! Something about closed doors spurs the imagination to invent stories. A door on a gravestone, a door to a sorority house, a door to a tunnel--it's the allure of something hidden."

(source: Private Eye Weekly December 15, 1993)



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At the time, there wasn't a marked exit on the freeway. We just found it on a map. The cemetery was all weeds. We didn't find it creepy at all. We all found it very interesting and have pictures.

I went to the Trenton cemetery last summer FINALLY as my great grandparents are buried there (polygamists). Nothing like I expected. Very small.

Since I've been researching family history I find visiting old cemeteries isn't creepy either insofar as I visit during the daytime. Never at night.

Smaller cemeteries are easier to navigate IMO than large ones.

One I was at last week to visit my great grandpa's grave that cemetery is larger than the town it serves! The town is only 131 at last census taking. There's easily way more people than that buried in the little Mormon cemetery on the outskirts of town.

:)

Circulating the cemetery pipeline:

~ The Three Nephites, immortals from the BoM, wander the West, reminding the faithful to stock up on canned goods and dried foods. These bearded, sometimes shabby gentlemen like to hitchhike, and frequently pitch in to help missionaries injured in freeway mishaps. In the past, they recommended tobacco simmered in lard to soothe the sore breasts of nursing mothers. These days, they materialize in the O.R. to assist in major surgery.

~ The Cat Woman of Holladay worships Satan. She keeps five hundred cats available for various propitiary rites. Every year, to commemorate her husband's death by water, she drowns a Tabby in her swimming pool.

~ A guy at Highland High took this girl from West High to see Octotussy at the Redwood Drive-in. He put some Spanish fly into her Cherry Coke and went to get some popcorn. When he came back, she was dead. See, he had a VW with a stick shift, and anyway, this girl had ... well, it was really awful.

~ Go to the Gilgal Gardens at 749 E. 500 South and see the sphinx with the face of Joseph Smith. Then, look for the stone sculpture of a heart that you can hear beating. On your way home, stop by the Masonic Temple and listen to the sphinx speak.

~ Seven wives of Heber C. Kimball are buried in a circle around their husband, like spokes in a wheel, their heads toward the center. The grave is at the end of Gordon Place, 155 N. Main, where a monument has been erected to his memory.

Circa the 'Private Eye Weekly' from 12/15/1993

May I add 2 more to your list?
Scofield Cematary and Woodside Cematary

And the cat lady is long gone from Walker Lane. Now there are many starter castles instead.

So the cat lady was more than a rumor? Wow. Wonder what got her in the end?

Thanks for the info. :)

Cat Lady's house was the late night, get-in-trouble, destination of choice when I was in high school. Little gravestones in her yard. I was only brave enough to get out of the car once. I'm sure she got tired of yelling at kids to get out of her yard!!

IMO the most disturbing burial site in Utah not mentioned on the top ten would be the Mountain Meadow Massacres site, where a monument has been erected to honor the 120 fallen men, women and children who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Next time I visit the St. George area, I hope to visit that while there as well.

http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/Direc_Maps/directio.htm

There was a group of Jewish "back-to-the-land" settlers who established a failed colony in Clarion, Utah (Sanpete County) in the early 1900s.

The cemetery there has several star of David gravestones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarion,_Utah

This is very interesting. I hope to study it more in depth tomorrow. Thanks much for sharing this.

The SLC Tribune and other news outlets of SLC were advertising heavily during that part of the late 19th and early 20th centuries catering to Jewish immigrants. That was around the time my great grandmothers and a grand uncle migrated there from Omaha after their father and husband had died. He'd ran a shirt factory in Omaha, and had been one of the prominent synagogue leaders in Omaha.

After his death they went in search of business ventures, as did other Jews who immigrated to Utah during that era. The ads promised them much success by relocating to Utah. It was a great deception IMO. But it worked to draw immigrants there in search of opportunities.



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are located here:

http://www.salamandersociety.com/museum/gravestones/

Very nice photos, thanks for sharing. :)

Regarding the smooth stones placed at the grave of Orrin Porter Rockwell, when visiting the SLC cemetery last week for the final time before returning home, the lady in the office explained how the flowers are routinely stolen off of graves throughout the cemetery.

In the Jewish cemeteries within the larger SLC cemetery it is customary to leave smooth stones in lieu of flowers to remember loved ones by. I noticed when visiting the Jewish graves of my ancestors that while my flowers had been stolen from their graves in the week since I'd been there last, no stones had gone missing from the vicinity adorning any of the monuments.

In place of flowers my last visit I left stones. Lots of smooth some colorful, stones on my great grandmothers graves. They stand a much better chance of surviving the thieves that haunt the graveyard to siphon off lovely floral arrangements meant for our dearly departed. Only in Salt Lake City. City of paradoxes for sure.

People may have taken a lesson from the Jews there as in leaving stones in place of flowers. :)

I spent the better part of the past two weeks honoring my dead in parts of Utah and Idaho where they're buried, some long forgotten.

Some were war heroes, others not. Memorial Day to me means family, and all of them. My loved ones, and as for patriotism I too stand in solidarity with those who served my country.

As for snarky's comments above, how dare he say that honoring our loved ones including in Mormon pioneer cemeteries or elsewhere does not somehow keep in the spirit of Memorial Day, or with Recovery from Mormonism?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2016 08:30AM by Amyjo.