The Birth of Boot Hill

OMI employees Adrian Jaramio, left, and Wayne Duran fill in a grave that sank a little at the Grants Cemetery. The Grants Cemetery Board scheduled a tour of the cemetery Wednesday night to see how recent improvements have been going and access its general condition. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Several western U.S. settlements had cemeteries known as "Boot Hill." Grants is one of them.

Now officially known as Grants Memorial Park, the local burial ground began simply as a place "to bury one person at a time in line," according to Bill Hocker whose family has been involved in the cemetery throughout the years with the Grants Mortuary.

As time went by, he said, local residents built a fence around the area at what is now the northeast corner of the park on the south side of Roosevelt Avenue near the Lobo Canyon Road-Mesa Boulevard shopping district.

In those days, things were pretty informal as far a written records go.

City Clerk Radawn Narramore said there are a few documentations of people being buried in the 1920s, starting in 1925. Detailed records were kept beginning in 1966, she said. Hocker added that is when the land was surveyed and the Grants Cemetery Board "started charging for the lots." It's also when some grass was planted with an irrigation system being installed.

Hocker served for many years on the board, which became an advisory panel to the City Council when the municipal government took over the operation on Dec. 10, 1991.

"We kept the records and when somebody wanted a burial site we'd go out with them. They would pick out the lot they wanted and the city would dig the grave," Hocker said.

Narramore is in charge of the city's operation of the cemetery which now encompasses at least 13 acres, according to John Rhoderick, who handles public works for the city. The actual maintenance is part of the city's parks contract with Operations and Maintenance International, which also has a contract with the city to operate the water and sewer systems. The city pays the corporation more than $1 million a year through the contracts.

Wednesday afternoon the current Cemetery Board was scheduled to tour the cemetery, including a newly developed section between the existing developed area and Sage Street. The visit was to be the panel's regular meeting.

The present board includes Chair Wesley Martin, whose term expires this month, Lita Roberts, Cydni Reynolds and Mike Martinez, whose terms will expire in April 2007 and Linda Fenley, recently reappointed by the mayor and city council for a 2-year term which will end in June 2008.

After Boot Hill filled up, the section where the entrance road circles around was opened, followed by a triangular section to the south. There also is an infants and urns section from the entrance west to the Grants Flood Control Channel of the Rio San Jose.

Narramore said that while the August 2005 flash flood knocked down a concrete block retaining wall on the western edge of an area reserved for interment of urns, none had actually been buried at the time.

"The urn section will be used when we can get the wall back up and are comfortable that another flood won't take out that wall," she said.

Although there are approximately 3,500 grave sites in the developed portion, the park was running out of space.

So in Febuary 2005, the city bought an additional 5-acre site from La Jolla Development for $65,100, according to Special Projects Coordinator Roberta Martinez.

This is the dirt and sagebrush area east of Sage Street. The paved street now connects with Mesa Verde Avenue and Mesa Boulevard at Nimitz Drive. The council recently approved abandoning the platted streets in the hillside area with plans to turn Mesa Verde and Sage into dead-end cul-de-sacs.

Along with the recently opened area which was to be the focus of the board's tour, the new area provides an additional 2,300 or so grave sites in what are called "Sections D, E and F." Narramore said about 90 plots in Section D have been reserved or used. When 80 percent of the 400 units in D are committed, Section E will be opened with the same 80 percent guideline to be used for opening Section F.

Those standards are in the regulations adopted by the Cemetery Board on Dec. 1, 2004, and ratified by the Grants City Council the same day.

As to the future of the cemetery, Narramore said, "We have a lot of plans for the future as far as landscaping." This includes a memorial area where trees and other monuments could be installed.

For ease of cutting the grass, the newer sections of the developed portion of Grants Memorial Park require headstones only installed by the city's contractor be flat to the ground. And they are limited in size to 28x16x4 inches, according to the rules-regulations, for a single casket.

The rules do allow a double-depth burial, with the headstone being up to 48x16x4 inches. They also allow a casket and four urns or only four urns in one plot.

To allow OMI to cut the grass, etc., all decorations at grave sites must be removed in time for regular maintenance on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from May through September, except for Memorial Day. The schedule is reduced to the first Tuesday of each month, October through April.

Ceremonies are to be conducted from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. except Sundays and holidays. The city charges city residents $300 to reserve a plot, $500 to residents outside the city but inside Cibola County and $800 to those from outside Cibola County. There also is a $200 charge to open and close a single-casket grave, $300 for the double-casket site and $100 for an urn site. An extra $150 is charged for Saturdays.

To reserve a site or schedule a grave's opening-closing, contact Narramore at City Hall from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays except holidays or telephone her at 287-7927.

To contact reporter Jim Maniaci in Grants, telephone 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).