Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery

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.