MINNEAPOLIS PIONEERS AND SOLDIERS MEMORIAL CEMETERY Historic Site — 2945 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota Status: Operating · Access: Open to public Dossier: https://haunthunt.com/place/minneapolis-pioneers-and-soldiers-memorial-cemetery-minnesota/ NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. A historic site in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors. Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery began as a favor on a farm. In 1853 a Baptist pastor asked Martin and Elizabeth Layman to bury his infant son on their land at what became Cedar and Lake — the first burial in what is now the oldest surviving cemetery in Minneapolis. The Laymans opened Minneapolis Cemetery formally in 1858 and grew it to twenty-seven acres holding some 27,000 dead. The ground predates Minnesota statehood and holds the whole first city — Philander Prescott and Charles Christmas among the founders, veterans of the War of 1812 through the Spanish-American War, Underground Railroad figures, immigrants, and thousands of children. Only about 1,800 markers remain over the 20,000-plus burials — most graves went unmarked or lost their stones. The cemetery filled by 1919 and the city closed it; about 7,000 remains were exhumed and moved, and pressure mounted to clear the rest for development. A 1925 rescue campaign — 'let them sleep undisturbed,' the Journal pleaded — became one of Minneapolis's earliest preservation efforts; the city took ownership in 1928 and renamed it the Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, with WPA workers redesigning the grounds in the 1930s. Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery is the archive's Layman's file — Minneapolis's oldest burial ground, grown from an 1853 farm favor into 27,000 graves, rescued from redevelopment in the city's first preservation campaign. WHY THIS FILE MATTERS Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery is the archive's first-city file — the 1858 Layman's Cemetery holding Minneapolis's founders, UGRR figures, and thousands of children under 1,800 remaining stones, saved by the city's earliest preservation fight. A cemetery the city nearly cleared keeps its prairie — the file's suggestion being that Layman's hold is the bleak openness the papers mocked: twenty-seven acres of unmarked graves at a busy intersection, the first Minneapolis underneath the traffic. HISTORY — 2 documented facts · NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from. · Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it. SOURCES — 3 cited · Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01 — National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223 · NPS Network to Freedom listing — National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm · Underground Railroad — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad — HauntHunt is a research archive. Claims are filed as reported — documented where sources exist, marked as folklore or unverified where they do not. Methodology: https://haunthunt.com/methodology/ · Corrections: https://haunthunt.com/report/