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The Glenwood Cemetery Tour Moves Online, Offering A Spooky Virtual Experience

Every year at the Glenwood Cemetery, in Park City, the dead come back to life during a tour where reenactors stand in front of the headstones of the deceased. 

Andrew Cohen is the Interim Director of the Park City Museum. He said this year they had to move the tour online.  

“We felt that this was one of the big events that we always did every year, and everybody wanted to attend this,” Cohen said. “And because of COVID, we just couldn't pull it off.” 

Despite it being online, the event is still pretty similar to past years. 

“They're in full costume and we scripted everything up,” he said. “We did several takes, and it's a really wonderful presentation.”

The cemetery dates back to Park City’s mining days. It’s the final resting place for over 900 members of local fraternal organizations that offered insurance for miners who were injured or killed on the job. 

The Park City Museum has been restoring some of the Glenwood Cemetery headstones that are coming apart or sinking into the ground.

During the event, you’ll hear from volunteer actors portraying some of Park City’s founding members who are buried in the cemetery. 

“Alexander Smith, for example, he actually was the first one buried in Glenwood, and he comes alive,” Cohen said. “James Dunn, who was not only a miner, but the coroner and city judge in Park City.”

There are nearly 500 headstones at the cemetery. And because the cemetery dates back to the 1800s, the Park City Museum has started to restore some of the headstones. 

 

 

“About three years ago, the city had an accident, the city owned the Glenwood cemetery and a little child was killed, walking on one of those headstones. It tumbled over,” he said. “And so what happened is, it was given to the museum and then we did a huge restoration effort. Phase one, we repaired all the headstones that were potential issues for accidents.” 

Last year, they upgraded another 40 headstones that were coming apart or sinking into the ground. 

The cemetery is open to the public, and you can watch the Glenwood Cemetery Tour for free on the Park City Museum's Youtube channel.

Jessica joins KPCW as a general assignment reporter and Sunday Weekend Edition host. A Florida native, she graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in English — concentrating in film studies — and journalism. Before moving to Utah, she spent time in Atlanta, GA.
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