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Show CeimitiBonniiiaill sites The Park City Cemetery Editor's note: Each week throughout the centennial year a historical site in Park City will be identified with a descriptive plaque. By the end of the year the numbered num-bered markers will act as signposts to a self-guided tour of Park City. This week's centennial site is the City Cemetery on Kearns Boulevard. The first child born in Park City was also the first child to die here. George and Rhoda Snyder, who are credited with christening the town Park City, operated a boarding house here when the area was just a mining camp. When their infant daughter Peal succumbed during a heavy snowstorm, attempts to take her to Salt Lake City for burial were thwarted by snow drifts. Thus she was buried on this property owned by the Snyders, who donated the 40-acre 40-acre parcel to the City in 1879 to be used as a cemetery. In March, 1881 the Park Record newspaper sponsored spon-sored a dance to raise funds for a picket fence to surround the cemetery. The handsome wrought iron fence fen-ce with stone pilasters was erected in 1883. Although several Chinese were buried here, all were exhumed to be shipped to China for reburial, as was the Chinese custom. Early tombstones indicate an unusually high number of young children's graves, testifying to the ravaging effects ef-fects of disease, severe winters, win-ters, and hardships of life in early Park City. |