Page 10 - Flathead Beacon // 12.25.13

10 | DECEMBER 25, 2013 NEWS FLATHEADBEACON.COM

County to Begin Pursuit of

Sayin’.
Just

Demersville Cemetery Board

“We screwed it up

... I’m going to be
making appropriate
adjustments once Historic site needs

we get through this better upkeep, record
year.”
keeping, proponents say
President Barack Obama
on the universally panned
launch of the Afordable By MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon
Care Act.
The Demersville Cemetery is one of
the oldest graveyards in Flathead County,
“I think we’re going and now local oicials are taking the irst
to see an increase in steps to ensuring the cemetery remains
a historically accurate and modernly up-
cross-border traic kept place.
for those hoping to The Flathead County commissioners
access our brothels.”
gave the go-ahead for those interested in
Don Hutchinson, vice better preserving the cemetery to begin
president of the Evangelical the process of creating a board to oversee
Fellowship of Canada, a the cemetery’s maintenance and histori-
religious group that opposes cal record.
Canada’s highest court’s While the commission didn’t actually
decision to strike down create the board during its Dec. 19 discus-
anti-prostitution laws.
sion, the commissioners agreed that in-
terested parties can start workshopping Demersville Cemetery. PHOTO BY JAIX CHAIX
“I sensed a little ideas, and then can come back to the com-
mission with a plan.
bit of regret when
Commissioner Cal Scott brought up RECORD KEEPING FOR THE CEMETERY HAS BEEN “HAPHAZARD”
I was speaking to the idea, noting that it would likely lead to
him. He said he just creating a cemetery district.
IN THE PAST, WITH FOUR OR FIVE MAPS AND MULTIPLE SURVEYS
Flathead County Clerk and Recorder
got caught up in OF THE SAME SPACE. THIS HAS RESULTED IN CONFUSION ABOUT
the ’70s lifestyle, Paula Robinson told the commission that
and after years her oice has been historically responsi- WHO OR WHAT IS ACTUALLY UNDERGROUND.
ble for the Demersville Cemetery, which
went by he became is one of the last remaining pieces of De-
embarrassed he mersville.
hadn’t had contact Demersville was a boomtown in the surveys of the same space. This has result- also beneit from a sonar project to ind
late 1880s, located south of where Ka- ed in confusion about who or what is actu- out where people are buried. This would
with his family and lispell is today. It was supposed to have a ally underground.
help create an accurate map, which would
that made it easier to
dismiss them.”
train depot, but the town almost immedi- “We don’t know where everyone is also show where there is open space; the
ately became a ghost town after the Great buried,” Robinson told the commission.
Demersville Cemetery is also where the
Detective Jason Moran, on Northern Railway decided to put its divi- Maintenance has also been a bit of an county buries its indigent dead.
speaking to Robert Hutton sion point in modern-day Kalispell.
issue in the past, and a board would be “It is one of the oldest cemeteries in
after inding Hutton in Many of the town’s original inhabit- able to keep it on schedule. There are oth- Flathead County and it is our responsibil-
Montana 41 years after his ants are buried in the Demersville Cem- er unique challenges at the Demersville ity,” Robinson told the commission.
family feared he had been a etery, ofering a glimpse of history of Flat- Cemetery, such as persistent lilac bushes Scott said he would help spearhead the
victim of serial killer John
Wayne Gacy.
head County’s beginnings.
that grow up through graves and cannot new project, and that he was already in
Robinson said the record keeping for be pulled up for fear of pulling up the grave touch with a group of people interested in
the cemetery has been “haphazard” in the and its contents as well.
the preserving cemetery.
past, with four or ive maps and multiple
Robinson said the cemetery would
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