Benton Avenue Cemetery
A cemetery in Helena, Montana, Benton Avenue Cemetery is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Cemetery with apparition folklore. HauntHunt files it with haunted locations. Ask the file who haunts it and it answers: Girl in yellow. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.
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Is Benton Avenue Cemetery haunted?
The record holds 1 claim, 1 legend, 1 named entity — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed documented legend. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
Benton Avenue is Helena's pioneer ground — the cemetery the county laid out in 1870 on the valley's south end, which took the dead of the gold camp when the original City Cemetery was dug up for Central School in 1875. John Kinna the first mayor is here, Lewis Reeder of Reeder's Alley, Edwin Toole the governor's brother, and the markers that still read 'M.T.' — Montana Territory — because the graves predate the state.
The cemetery was the Protestant and nonsectarian ground; the Catholics had Oakes Street, the Jews had Home of Peace, and Benton Avenue took the Masons and the indigent and the children the epidemics took. It was Helena's main burying ground until Forestvale opened in 1890, and by 1966 it was a tangle of weeds that Lucy Baker and the volunteers spent decades reclaiming.
The file keeps Benton Avenue: the 1870 founding, the reinterred pioneers, the M.T. stones, and the pioneer cemetery the volunteers saved.
Benton Avenue is the archive's pioneer file — the territorial graves, the gold-camp reinterments, and the cemetery the capital forgot and reclaimed.
Why this file matters
Benton Avenue is the archive's pioneer file — Helena's 1870 ground, the territorial dead, and the 1966 rescue.
A cemetery displaced by a school keeps its pioneers — the file's suggestion being that Benton's hold is the layering: the moved graves, the M.T. markers, and the community that pulled its founders out of the weeds.
The Benton Avenue Cemetery located in Helena, Montana was established by the Lewis and Clark County commissioners in 1870, and run by the county until management was turned over to the Benton Avenue Cemetery Association in 1922. The City Cemetery was older than Benton, but that property had to be cleared in 1875 for construction of Central School, those graves reinterred at Benton. In 1883, the route of Helena's first Memorial Day parade ended with a ceremony at Benton Avenue Cemetery.
Benton Avenue CemeteryThe record of claims
Southwest Montana recounts a girl wearing yellow. The figure answers to Girl in yellow in the retellings. The burial ground at Helena is exactly the setting the account needs — old graves, older grief, and a story that won't settle. 'Southwest Montana’s Haunted Places' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.
Southwest Montana recounts a girl wearing yellow. Cemeteries keep their stories in the stones; Benton Avenue Cemetery in Helena, Montana has its version filed among them. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. 'Southwest Montana’s Haunted Places' carries the account. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.
Alleged entities
Southwest Montana recounts a girl wearing yellow. The presence goes by Girl in yellow. Benton Avenue Cemetery's dead are the site's permanent residents; the reports are how the living say they keep noticing. The account appears in 'Southwest Montana’s Haunted Places'. The name travels further than the proof; the sightings keep renewing the lease.
Sources on file
- 01Southwest Montana’s Haunted PlacesSouthwest Montana · tourism · A3
Field notes & open questions
Source-grounded discovery. Paranormal statements are attributed traditions or experiences, not established events. Independent archival history, precise coordinates and current operator access remain pending.