{"id":1092,"slug":"woodland-cemetery-iowa","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Woodland is Des Moines's oldest cemetery — older than the city. Five farmers donated the first five and a half acres in 1848, two years after Iowa statehood and three years before Fort Des Moines incorporated; the first burial, in 1850, was Thomas Casady, infant son of the pioneer judge who now lies there too. Modeled on the garden-cemetery movement, its oak-covered hills served as the young city's first park — the place residents strolled before Des Moines had parks to stroll in.","The cemetery's rules were the prairie's promise: anyone could be buried at Woodland regardless of race, religion, or income — and the graves show it. Civil War dead lie here Black and white, Union and Confederate, side by side; soldiers from the War of 1812 to Vietnam; the founders of Drake University and Des Moines University; a Supreme Court justice; the Younkers and Tones who built the city's business district. It's also a Network to Freedom site — the cemetery as evidence of a city that buried its dead without the era's usual exclusions.","Eighty thousand graves fill sixty-nine acres now — the City Receiving Vault that held winter's dead until the ground thawed, the Odd Fellows and Jewish and Catholic sections folded in over the years, volunteers still resetting the monuments and laying the December wreaths.","Woodland is the archive's first-park file — the 1848 garden cemetery that predates Des Moines, buried everyone regardless of race or creed, and holds the founders and the forgotten of the capital city it watched grow."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Woodland Cemetery is the archive's open-gate file — Des Moines's oldest cemetery, founded 1848 before the city incorporated, where burial was open regardless of race, religion, or income and the dead include Civil War soldiers Black and white side by side.","A cemetery that predates its city keeps the founders — the file's suggestion being that Woodland's hold is the rule: anyone could be buried here, in the oak hills that were Des Moines's first park before the city existed."]}],"name":"Woodland Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","CEMETERY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Woodland Cemetery is a historic site in Des Moines, Iowa, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. 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 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"2019 Woodland Avenue","city":"Des Moines","county":null,"state":"Iowa","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":41.57259,"lon":-93.610243,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 42IA02, source row 656. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"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. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The detail is preserved in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Woodland Cemetery is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. 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 detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"The cemetery is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"HISTORIC_SITE","incoming_value":"CEMETERY","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The Des Moines cemetery—where the city’s abolitionists rest.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 42IA02, source row 656. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 3; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Woodland Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland_Cemetery","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Woodland Cemetery may refer to:\n\nWoodland cemetery, a type of cemetery\nor it may refer to specific places:\nin Sweden\n\nSkogskyrkogården (The Woodland Cemetery) in Stockholm, Sweden\nin the United States (by state)\n\nWoodland Cemetery (Quincy, Illinois), listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)\nWoodland Cemetery (Des Moines, Iowa)\nWoodland Cemetery (Jackson, Michigan)\nWoodland Cemetery (Monroe, Michigan)\nWoodland Cemetery (Newark, New Jersey)\nWoodland Cemetery (Staten Island, New York), in Grymes Hill, Staten Island\nWoodland Cemetery (Cleveland), Ohio, listed on the NRHP\nWoodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Dayton, Ohio, listed on the NRHP\nWoodlands Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylva","img":null,"score":89},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}