Mountain Green Cemetery is full, county needs to do something, board members say

Morgan County’s communities are running out of places to bury their dead, Mountain Green Cemetery Board members told county commissioners at their Oct. 15 meeting. The situation could soon be critical, and they want Morgan County to come up with a plan.  

All of the plots in Mountain Green Cemetery have been sold and about 75 percent of them have been used so far, Vickie Benson told commissioners.

“As the Mountain Green community has grown and expanded, our private small-owned cemeteries continued to serve the residents of Mountain Green,” she said. “However, in August of this year the cemetery completely depleted all valuable property and plots so as of Sept. 1, 2024, Mountain Green Cemetery is no longer a burial [ground].”

“There is no possibility at this time of enlarging the cemetery because it is bordered on all sides by private land, so we just wanted you to be aware that this part of the county no longer has any resources,” she said.

The cemetery is landlocked by private land and none of the neighbors are willing to sell just a piece of their property to expand the cemetery, cemetery board member Sandy Johnson said. The neighboring Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot sell any land to the cemetery because it has 5-to-10-foot cement drainage pipes located on its property. A bowery located downhill from the plots is not an option for development because of high ground water, Benson said.

Benson and Johnson asked commissioners to consider this need as they approve development agreements for future development in the county.

“We set aside areas for schools, for parks or a skate park, for a bike park, but we don’t have anything as far as a plan that we know of to help with cemeteries,” Johnson said. “It’s a huge need.”

“My proposal is to set aside some property and then … ask the citizens of the county if they’d be willing to do a line item tax for a cemetery or for several cemeteries whatever that need will be but I mean ask the citizens and see what they want to do,” she said.

The two women also suggested establishing a special service district to fund the acquisition of property for a new cemetery.

“If we gave credit to someone for open space for a cemetery you might be able to get it in a larger development dedicated to the special service district so you didn’t have to pay for the land and then the district could fund its operation vis a vis their taxing power,” Commissioner Robert McConnell responded.

Another option McConnell suggested was building a mausoleum at the bowery but acknowledged that it would be “a huge investment.”

County Administrative Manager Kate Becker told the women their timing on bringing the issue to the commission was fortuitous.

“The reason that I’m so grateful that you reached out ladies is because we are next year redoing our entire county plan …. so this is a great conversation,” she said.

Commission Chair Mike Newton thanked Benson and Johnson for bringing the issue to the commission “so that we can start the conversation and I’m sure there’ll be more conversation regarding it into the future and something especially when we talk development I think there’s some things that could be done there.”

Mountain Green Cemetery, which is located at 5055 West Old highway road of Mount was established in 1860. It was laid out on land owned by David Bowman Bybee who sold just over a half-acre of his land to the settlement of Mountain Green to provide a community burial ground. In 1997 the cemetery was expanded to its current two acres and about 1,700 plots.λ