Elmwood Cemetery

Perhaps nowhere in the Kansas City community does the Kansas City story unfold more poignantly than in the life stories of the people buried in historic Elmwood Cemetery. These people, and their counterparts who rest in other burial grounds in Greater Kansas City, are the individuals who gave us the Kansas City Spirit.

“Elmwood Cemetery: Stories of Kansas City” will take you on a rich journey of discovery as the authors – some two dozen community leaders recruited by professional photographer and Elmwood Cemetery trustee Bruce Mathews – bring to life the stories of people who made Kansas City a thriving, diverse community, with respect for the past and an eye toward the future.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Elmwood Cemetery was founded in 1872 at 4900 Truman Road in Kansas City, Mo. Its beautiful grounds, designed by noted landscape architect George Kessler, are a repository for some 36,000 souls — some famous, some infamous, some altogether unknown.

Their stories trace Kansas City from its earliest days as a frontier town, through boom years when railroads first rumbled across the Missouri River, and into the 20th century, when stockyards flourished and downtown buildings muscled their way onto the skyline.

Featuring the photography of Bruce Mathews. Foreword by Adele Hall. All royalties from sales of the book will be donated to the Elmwood Cemetery Society.