Restoring the History of Oakland Cemetery
You could say the history of Atlanta is buried beneath the 48 acres of Oakland cemetery. But when it was created in 1850, no money was put aside for maintenance. The Historic Oakland Foundation has been working on the city park’s restoration, but Susan Mittleman reports that it’s running short on funds.
The famous resting place for Margaret Mitchell, Maynard Jackson and countless other Atlantans is showing its age: Some areas, says David Moore, are literally, falling apart. “Many of these structures have leaky roofs, one or two in particular are made from sandstone and are melting away, the sides are loose, they need new pointing with new mortar.”
Moore is the Executive Director of the Historic Oakland Foundation, which, since 1976, has been working in concert with the city to maintain and restore the cemetery. “We’re in the process of restoring this place stone by stone, wall by wall, ” says Moore.
So far they’ve completed two phases of their 10-phase plan, which includes rehabbing both hard scape and landscape. The foundation got a three-year, $400,000.00 matching grant from the National Park Service, called Save America’s Treasures. They have to raise and spend the money before getting reimbursed from the federal government, which Moore says is proving a challenge since the grant disappears at the end of the year.
“We want to push to finish raising and spending the money on basically what are our 55 mausoleums here. The grant was specifically for the restoration for the crown jewels of Oakland.”
They’ve restored 33 of the 55 mausoleums but need to find another $100,000.00 to finish the job before the grant runs out.
The Historic Oakland Foundation is a not for profit organization. You can get involved by going to their website.
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