Heavy rains last month uncovered the base of a rare tombstone in a once-forgotten Arkansas cemetery that activists are working to nominate to the National Register of Historic Places.
Karen White found the tombstone on the north end of the 5-acre property in Hot Springs while wandering the grounds Sept. 22.
White, who is spearheading the nomination process, said the discovery is significant because it's just the third tombstone and fifth grave marker found in the cemetery since the city started clearing the wooded area in 2016.
Created in 1895 in response to a smallpox epidemic, the cemetery was a place to bury people who died from contagious diseases, earning it the name the "pest house cemetery." It was later transformed into a paupers' graveyard for soldiers and laborers.
More than 1,000 people were buried on the property before it fell out of public memory and was overrun with weeds and brush.
"City officials changed, and it just got lost," White said. "It was never registered with the state, but now they’re working to clean it up. It's being shown the respect it deserves."
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Restoration efforts began in April 2016 after White noticed references to a city cemetery while searching online for the burial site of her great-great grandfather. Upon visiting the property, the area was so overgrown that she contacted the city to restore and preserve the site.
The cemetery was registered with the state a few months later to protect the property from future development.
"This is our city cemetery. There’s a story here," she said. "The cemetery is significant to the history of Hot Springs and the state, maybe the country."
With help from inmates at the Arkansas Department of Correction Ouachita River Unit in Malvern, city officials have spent the past two years restoring the cemetery that has been neglected for decades.
In about two-thirds of the property, crews have mowed, removed tree limbs and filled sunken areas to prevent flooding, Public Works Director Denny McPhate said. A small section that must be cleared by hand remains, but McPhate said he hopes to have that completed within the next eight months.
In the meantime, White wants the city to install a street sign identifying the cemetery.
"It’d be nice to have another place of historic value in our community," McPhate said. "We’ve got a lot of history, and it adds to the mystic and uniqueness of Hot Springs."