Bellefontaine Cemetery & Arboretum

The story of Bellefontaine Cemetery, a non-sectarian, perpetual care cemetery, begins with the year 1849, when many prominent citizens of St. Louis, who had the welfare of the City at heart, recognized that the old cemeteries located along Jefferson Avenue would soon have to be abandoned, since they were directly in the path of the City’s westward growth. The Cemetery, as we view it today, is largely the work of Almerin Hotchkiss. The original 138 acres was expanded to 314 acres by three additional land acquisitions before 1900. Approximately 70 acres of unused ground remain for future development. Bellefontaine’s fourteen miles of curved roadways were created to afford beautiful views of the landscape, seasonal foliage and lakes confined within its borders. The Cemetery, noted for its silent beauty, numbers 86,000 interments among 6,800 spacious family lots and numerous single grave areas. Bellefontaine continues to have one of the finest collections of trees in the St. Louis area. In this Cemetery are buried many men and women whose lives contributed conspicuously to the westward expansion of our country, and a visit to their graves may give us a keener appreciation of our national heritage. Also, Bellefontaine Cemetery is truly an outdoor museum containing some of the finest sculptures and memorial art in the country. It provides a splendid catalog of styles and changing tastes in memorial art illustrating one phase of our cultural growth.