HALLOWED GROUND HONORED HEROES

Across the West, cemeteries, monuments and memorials provide a poignant reminder of the West's historic past.

- STUART ROSEBROOK AND THE EDITORS OF TRUE WEST

Across the United States and around the world, a popular activity for centuries has been touring historic cemeteries, columbaria, monuments and memorials. In the American West, heritage travelers will discover that walking the hallowed grounds of sites as divergent as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Deadwood, South Dakota's Mt. Moriah Cemetery and Ogallala, Nebraska's Boot Hill Cemetery will reveal the history of the famous and not so famous, the forgotten and the oft remembered of our national and local history. Visitors who tour historic graveyards will discover a poignant reverence to our past that can only be gained from the quiet contemplation of past lives discovered in the short epitaphs of gravestones, memorials and mausoleums.

The fifth edition of the True West Ultimate Historical Travel Guide will now include our guide to historic cemeteries, monuments and memorials. Our lists of suggested sites are in five regions and 22 states. The listings are not comprehensive but are representative of where a traveler should start within each of the regions. Visitors interested in cemeteries, funerals and gravestones, known as taphophiles, will note the importance of respecting the rules, hours and traditions of the public and private graveyards, monuments, memorials and religious sites to be toured.