Green Hill Cemetery, a Museum for Tombstone Tourists HD

Green Hill Cemetery is not just a tranquil final resting place for the citizens of Bedford, Indiana. Many of the gravestones and monuments located here are exquisite pieces of art. A lot of the carvings, statues, sculptures and engravings are the work of limestone artisans and stone carvers that have lived in the Bedford area. This has made Green Hill Cemetery a popular destination for Tombstone Tourists. Scattered throughout Green Hill Cemetery are wonderful pieces of folk art. In addition to the large monuments and life size carvings of individuals, there are several intricately carved tree stump gravestones and many other wonderful pieces of art. To help visitors to Green Hill Cemetery become better tombstone tourists, the cemetery has a self-guided walking tour to help locate the gravesites of prominent Lawrence County residents that can be accessed via smartphone. To understand why Green Hill Cemetery became such unique open air museum of tombstones it’s worth exploring how Bedford became the “Limestone Capital of the World.” The original Lawrence County seat was in Palestine, a town overlooking White River, built in 1818. A malaria outbreak in Palestine forced county officials to create a new county seat away from the river. The town of Bedford was established in 1825, four miles to the north. A cemetery board for the new town chose a spot to bury their dead. The name Green Hill was suggested by a board member’s daughter. The first burial at Green Hill Cemetery is believed to have taken place in 1826. Shortly after that the Indiana limestone belt would be discovered in 1827. This is a narrow band of sedimentary stone that runs north from Bedford, through Monroe County, up into Owen County. Commonly known as Salem or Bedford Limestone, this tract of stone is only 10 miles wide and 30 miles long. The massive stone formation is believed to be more than 300 million years old and its thickness varies from 25 to 60 feet. Stone quarries began opening throughout the area and the stone industry was formed. In 1830 the Blue Hole Quarry was opened on the eastern edge of Bedford. After the railroad came to the area in the 1850s, the heavy blocks of Indiana limestone could more readily be hauled across the country and use of this sustainable building material began to expand beyond the stone belt. Demand for Indiana limestone skyrocketed after extensive fires happened in Chicago(1871) and Boston (1872). In those fires structures built with limestone sustained the least amount of fire damage. Stone artisans and master carvers began to emigrate to the Bedford area from Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany and Italy to work in local quarries and mills. These carvers and mill workers would travel on the trains with large chunks of limestone cut from the quarries to carve at sites around the country. By 1900, Indiana limestone made up 1/3 of the total U.S. dimension limestone industry, by 1920, it had increased to 80%. Indiana Li