This article appeared in ICCFA Magazine, January 2012
The U .S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service has approved Woodland Cemetery’s nomination by the Ohio Historical Society to be designated as a hi storic district on the National Register of Historic Places.
“This honor is important to both Woodland and the region,” said Dave FitzSimmons, president and CEO of the Dayton , Ohio, cemetery. “It enhances Dayton ‘s reputation and adds another reason for locals and tourists to visit the National Aviation Heritage Area and the Aviation Trail.”
The borders of the historic district encompass the 105 acres that comprised the Victorian sections of the cemetery within its 1912 borders.
It includes 25 structures deemed “contributing” to the historic significance of the District, including the 1847 receiving vault, the Johnny Morehouse monument, the Dunbar gravesite and the Soldier Section donated to the G.A.R. in 1870, which has more than 600 Civil War-type marble headstones.
Landscape architect Adolph Strauch designed Woodland’s Victorian section
Due in large part to the contributions of landsca pe architect Adolph Strauch,Woodland Cemetery became one of America’s premier properties in the 1870s, and its 105 Victorian Acres remain much as they appeared in 1912.
“This is an important moment in Woodland ‘s history,” FitzSimmons said. “Our historic administration building, entrygate and Tiffany Chapel were added to the National Register in 1979, but this attests to the historic significance of the entire Victorian District.”
Woodland’s application for historic district status stressed the contribution Adolph Strauch made to the development of new Rural Garden Cemetery Movement in the 1870s. Woodland received permission to “borrow” Strauch from Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, which was recognized as the most beautiful of all cemeteries in the 1870s.
Over the next several years, Strauch transformed Woodland’s landscape lawn plan, combining views of nature with architecture, monuments, lakes, bridges and valleys using new and innovative “curvilinear” design patterns for roads and burial sections.
During this time period, Strauch also planned numerous parks in Cincinnati while expanding the rural cemetery design concepts to Hartford Cemetery in Connecticut; Forest Lawn in Buffalo, New York; Highland Cemetery in Covington, Kentucky, and Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
Woodland is open for both self-guided and guided tours throughout the year. Its most popular tour is the two-hour ‘Historic” tour, but “Aviation Heroes,” “Famous Women of Woodland,” “Windows,” “Upper Loop Historic,” “Sports Legends” and historic tours with Segways are also available. A new driving tour, “The Private Mausoleums of Woodland ,” will be inaugurated this spring.