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In search of lost cemeteries

A number of cemeteries forgotten through the years across the Tampa Bay area came to light during 2019, most of them final resting places for African-Americans. The new attention to old burial grounds springs from a Tampa Bay Times report in June that revealed the first and largest of them – Zion Cemetery in Tampa.

Archaeologists Kelsey Kreiser, Rebecca O'Sullivan, Eric Prendergast and Jeff Moates survey an area of Robles Park Village where they believe graves from Zion Cemetery may be located in Tampa, Monday, June 22, 2020.
Archaeologists start the process of ground truthing on segregation-era cemetery land.
June 22, 2020• History
To catch you up on what’s happened, here are answers to questions about all the burial grounds that have come to light in 2019.
Dec. 31, 2019• Hillsborough
Four lost black cemeteries have been found in the last year. There could be more. What does this say about the Tampa Bay area’s history?
June 5, 2020• News
Archaeologists discovered at least 70 graves that were left behind when a Clearwater cemetery was moved in the 1950s.
June 3, 2020• News
  1. Records say that the lost College Hill Cemetery is located under an empty plot of land that used as a parking lot for Italian Club Cemetery.
  2. The Hillsborough County Commission heard a report that lists Pepin Distributing in Tampa as the sight of a possible lost cemetery on Wednesday.
  3. The FrankCrum headquarters in Clearwater is located at 100 South Missouri Ave. and has remains from a Black cemetery on its property.
  4. Neris Reyero, left, a cemetery coordinator, and Lisa Grizzle, an administrative manager, roll up historic segregation-era Memorial Park Cemetery maps among burial records obtained by the city at the Tampa Parks and Recreation Department.
  5. This is a map of Zion Cemetery that was filed with the Hillsborough County Clerk on Feb. 20, 1901.
  6. Hillsborough County NAACP President Yvette Lewis speaks during an unveiling of a memorial and historical marker at Ridgewood Cemetery on the edge of King High School  in Tampa on Monday.
  7. A 2020 aerial photo of Memorial Park Cemetery, the East Tampa segregation-era Black burial ground.
  8. Aerial of the lost College Hill Cemetery, which is now a parking lot for the Italian Club Cemetery.
  9. Memorial Park Cemetery in Tampa is seen in 2021. The cemetery opened in 1919.
  10. For more than 100 years, Rose Cemetery has remained active and central to Tarpon Springs’ Black community.
  11. College Hill Cemetery was once a burial ground for 1,200 of Tampa's pioneering Cuban and Black residents. There is no evidence the bodies were moved. Archaeologists believe the graves could still be on the land that is now a parking lot for the Italian Club Cemetery.
  12. Erin McKendry, center, a staff archaeologist with Cardno, points to an area that is believed to be the top of a coffin belonging to the erased North Greenwood Cemetery while Ryan Harke, right, an archaeologist with the Florida Public Archaeology Network, and Kerri Klein, an archaeologist with Cardno, watch on Feb. 10, 2021, in Clearwater. At 10 a.m. Saturday, a historic marker denoting the existence of the cemetery will be unveiled at the site.
  13. The FrankCrum human resources headquarters in Clearwater is located at 100 S Missouri Ave. and has remains from a Black cemetery on its property.
  14. Karen Mariscal, 59, of Clearwater, collects a fallen flag and a clutch of flowers near the grave markers for Laura Goree (d1905) and Wm. Conway Zimmerman (d1907), at left and right, while visiting the Dunedin Municipal Cemetery in Dunedin.
  15. This small section of land at Woodlawn Cemetery was designated for Black burials more than a century ago. It was staked off in 1900 to separate it from white burials during that era of segregation.
  16. This historic marker now denotes the the location of the erased College Hill Cemetery. The burial ground for Black and Cuban residents is now the Italian Club Cemetery's parking lot. It was erased after 1941. There are no records of the bodies being moved.
  17. The parking in the northeast corner of Oaklawn Cemetery and the fellowship hall to the north of the church across the street are within the footprint of property that was deeded as a Black cemetery in 1883. It's unclear if anyone was buried there.
  18. Aerial view of where four homes and a church parking lot in East Tampa's Montana City Subdivision might have been built on top of the St. Joseph Aid Society Cemetery.
  19. Salesia Smith-Gordon comforts her mother Jeraldine Williams, center, in front of a memorial during the funeral service for her great-great-great grandmother Anna Wyche, who is among those buried at the erased Zion Cemetery, where Robles Park Village now stands in Tampa.
  20. Mayor Jane Castor speaks at a news conference at Memorial Park Cemetery to address the city’s role in the upkeep, care and protection of privately owned and city cemeteries.
  21. Archaeologists Mary Maisel, left, and Erin McKendry, with Cardno, excavate sand in March while working to confirm graves from Clearwater's erased St. Matthews Baptist Church Cemetery.
  22. Pasco County historian Jeff Cannon says this concrete slab marks Eugenia Osburn Howell's grave still located on land that was once Prospect Cemetery.
  23. A view of the Showmen’s Rest Cemetery at 3541 N. North Blvd. in Tampa. A developer wants to buy an unused portion of Showmen's Rest Cemetery for circus and carnival workers and build up to 15 single family homes on the land.
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