Midwest Lost Site Blog

My girlfriend and I took advantage of the awesome weather in Columbus, Ohio today to do some exploring. We ended up visiting 3 cemeteries so I could photograph them. The cemeteries were Brown Pet Cemetery, Primitive Baptist Cemetery, and Silent Hill Cemetery.

My favorite was the pet cemetery. I was amazed at how expansive the cemetery was. I left a bit sad thinking of how many loved family members and friends were buried there.

I hope to get the HTML written in the next few days.

This post deals with 2 events. First off, I was giving permission to photography a cemetery that is on the property of a Dublin, Ohio business. This required several emails and coordinating with their PR & security staff. Due to the requirements placed on me, I am not allowed to mention the business, the exact location of the site, or show any pictures that depict their building (which was kind of hard and I was not able to post several of my favorite photos from the shoot).

Mitchell Cemetery

The second piece of of news is that when I visited Salem Cemetery on 10/20/2007, I had the chance to meet with a news paper reporter for The Times Leader. Here is a link to scans of the actual article. I really wish I could have found a copy of it online. This is the first media attention the website has received, so I am pretty excited.

I had visited this cemetery last spring and sorta lost the pictures in the shuffle. This is a very cool little Jewish cemetery with lots of intresting stones. It is located basically at the corner of Alum Creek Drive & Integrity Drive in Columbus, Ohio. When I first went there, I drove past the entrance and had to turn around. I would highly suggest not pulling into the cemetery as there is no where to park/turn around.

Feel free to check out my gallery of the cemetery. I hope to have HTML pages written by the end of this weekend.

I met up with the folks from Egypt Valley Paranormal Investigations (I’ve mentioned them in the previous post). We met at Salem Cemetery, and I got some new pics. Click here to see them. I had a great time meeting the folks, and talking to a news paper reporter from the Times Leader.

The news paper article should appear on Sunday, Oct 28th. I’m waiting to see if myself or the website are mentioned. Wish me luck. I will post any information that relates to the site from the article here.

I also stopped by another cemetery off of SR-147 in Tacoma (near Barnsville, Ohio). I’m working on finding the name for the cemetery. For the time being, I am just calling it the unknown cemetery on 147. Click here to see the pics.

I found the following site while searching around on the internet today. I’ve already contacted the the site and find they are really cool. I look forward to possibly meeting with this group and doing some exploring. Feel free to check out their site:
Egypt Valley Paranormal Investigations

I’ve also done some minor maintenance to the site (mainly fixing broken pictures and spelling errors). This year has been a drag, because I’ve got some personal things going on and have not had a chance to do much exploring. I still hope to go out once or twice before it gets cold.

Sunday morning after going to a ham festival (yes, in my personal life I am an amateur radio operator). Myself and some friends were driving back, and wanted to ride past the new E. L. Bowsher High School they are building. As we rode past it, there was a comment about an old cemetery behind the building site.

It was decided to stop and look around, and I took the chance to snap some pics. These pics are from my cellphone, so they are crappy.

Ron, (one of the people I was with) said he thought he had some older photograph’s of the cemetery from somewhere between the 70’s & the 90’s. If I can get my hands on those pictures, I plan to scan them and get them into the gallery.

Click here for a link to the gallery.

Also, upon further research of the area, across the road (now University of Toledo property) sat an insane asylum and/or a TB hospital. There was also a cemetery there that has long since been moved. If that didn’t make this area cool, there is a small creek near there that was a spur off of the Erie canel, and was used to move stuff to the docks in Maumee, Ohio (or so I have been told). I look foward to researching and exploring this area in the future.

This is a quick note that I have written HTML for the Union Cemetery gallery entry. Click here to view the webpage on the domain for this exploration.

Last weekend (5/12) I visited Union Cemetery (off of Olentangy Road). The cemetery is in 2 parts about 1/4 of a mile apart on oppsite sides of the road. I visited the older part. I kind of expected afew more older graves, but overall I was impressed. I’ve not had a chance to write any HTML, but I do have the pictures up in my gallery.

In addition to this, I have some pictures from Pisgah Cemetery (at the intersection of 204 & 256). I need to get those pictures resized and uploaded. I hope to have that done this week.

I know I havn’t done much the last 2 months or so.  Due to the holidays and some personal issues, I have not had a chance to go exploring or do any work on the website.  But over the past week, I have started working on writing HTML for places I visted on November 11th, 2006.  I’ve also started doing some house cleaning on the website.  Most of it is very minor, just like spelling and grammar.  But I did modify the email me script to allow you to return to the page you clicked “contact me”, rather than just forcing you to go to the home page.

Below is a list of new HTML pages I created:

• Moore Cemetery (On The Med Property)
• Belmont County Indigent Cemetery
• Mt. Wood Overlook
• Mt. Wood Cemetery
• Jewish Cemetery adjacent to Mt. Wood Cemetery

I have a good feeling about 2007.  There’s alot I want to do.  Both in exploration and with the website. If you have any suggestions for either, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll be more than happy to look it over and discuss it with you.

So far for 2007, the sites I want to visit are:

• Warren Harding’s Tomb in Marion, Ohio (along with afew other cemeteries in the area)
• Greenlawn & Mt. Calvary Cemeteries in Columbus, Ohio
• President Ford’s Tomb in Grand Rapids, Mi
• William Henry Harrison’s Tomb in North Bend, Ohio
• Rutherford B. Hayes’s Tomb in Fremont, Ohio
• William McKinley’s Tomb in Canton, Ohio

Once again, if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to contact me.

Last weekend I did some more exploring with Beth (from Grave Addiction), and another friend I met from beth’s message board. I’ve been searching for a grave yard that is near the eastern end of US 40, and Justin (from the GA message board) stated that he knew of one that fit the description that I had. He had also heard that they had closed off the road to the Circle Cemetery, and we wanted to check that out. Beth, Justin, and myself agreed to meet and do some exploring.

I got to the meeting site (eastern end of US 40) early, and snapped some pictures while waiting. After meeting up with Beth & Justin, we headed to Moore Cemetery (on the property of The Med). This cemetery is one of the coolest. It’s so stereotypical of the old abandoned cemetery in the woods.
After taking pictures there, we decided that we needed to verify the rumor about the Circle Cemetery. The rumor was false. We parked at the bottom of the hill (incase the road was closed, and walked up. We walked up far enough to see where the road goes around the cemetery and that it was not blocked off.

Being as no visit to Egypt Valley is complete without a stop at Salem Cemetery, we decided to make a quick stop. At first, I didn’t really want to stop. But I am very very glad I did. While Beth & Justin were inside the cemetery, I took a walk across the road where the church had stood. While looking down over the hill, I saw what appear to be a gob pile (waste material from mining coal). It also appeared to be some small chunks of coal. I kicked one of the larger ones and realized that it was sandstone. The top surface appeared to be charred, while the rest of it seemed to have clean edges like pieces had been chipped off over time. I have no way of proviing it, but it’s *possible* that the chunk of sandstone I found was part of the foundation of the church.

When leaving Salem Cemetery, we decided to hit the Indigent Cemetery on SR-331 across the road from Belmont Technical College. I was not aware, but this still appears to be an active cemetery, with the newest marker (a wooden cross) being from earlier in 2006. While we were here, I took them to see the covered bridge near by.

After that, Justin wanted to hit Union Cemetery to check look around for some relatives of his and Beth wanted to check out the English Baron’s grave. While in St. Clairsville, I took Justin & Beth to visit the cemetery where Thomas Carr is buried.

At this point, it was getting late, and we decided to run to Wheeling, to check out some sites. When we got to Wheeling, we first stopped at Mt. Wood Overlook (the concrete castle). We then crossed the street and checked out the Jewish Cemetery and Mt. Wood Cemetery (which are adjacent).

By this time, we had been out in the rain all day and decided to call it a day. We plan to go back to Union Cemetery, and hit some more sites in Wheeling when the weather allows.

I hope to have the HTML done for those new pictures this weekend.