WSP11795 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

McPhee cemetery is relocated A $70,000 contract for the relocation of graves in the Dolores Project was awarded to the Markey Construction Co. of Raleigh, N,C., by the Bureau of Reclamation. The work consisted of the relocation of graves now in the Johnson Family Cemetery and the McPhee Cemetery to new locations in the Cortez Cemetery and the Sunset Memorial Gardens near Dolores. It also consisted of the raising of seven graves located in the Dolores Cemetery. All of the gravesites were to be covered by water of the McPhee Reservoir. Markey Construction Co. was the lowest bidder on the grave project with $70,330. The Markey bid, opened with the others at the BuRec regional office in Salt Lake City, was well below the federal government's estimate 01$103,000. Other bids ranged from $105,442 to $218,620. Melva Radcliff, who worked on the graves iden- tiflation project for about three years, said that most of the people buried in the John- son Family and McPhee cemeteries were to be tran- sferred to the one at Sununlt Ridge south of Dolores. Heavy construction machinery was working in the valley tha shellered the town of McPhee and by 1984 water was backing up behind the hlgh McPhee Dam for several mlles down to the gravesites. In addition, equipment has been ex- cavating gravel. Mrs. Radcliff said that everything that could possibly be done had been done to locate the relatives of the persons buried in the cemeteries. Legal notices were published in the local newspapers of a hearing to be held Nov. 10 petitioning the District Court to order the two cemeteries be vacated. In the Oct. 7, 1981, Mon- tezuma Valley Journal, it was noted that in the case of the Johnson Family Cemetery, all but five of the people were identified, and, she added, those five were believed to have been people traveling into the area who had died and were given a place there. At McPhee Cemetery, a number of transients are believed to have been buried along with those who were identified by relatives who live here now or can be located. McPhee was a lum- ber town and had a number of transients. All the expenses of the relocation were paid by the Bureau of Reclamation, Mrs. Radcliffe said, including the finding and preparation, buying the cemetery plots and reburying the remains. Because so many of the gravestones were gone and the small identification plates had been trampled into the earth by cows and other animals or buried by wind and rain, the work was done by digging the entire area up. Mrs, Radcliff said some of the remains weren't iden- tifiable. All the unknowns were taken to the Sununlt Ridge Cemetery, which is also evidently known as the "New Dolores Cemetery" and the "Sunset Memorial Gardens. " She estimated that there may have been as many as 50 persons reburied, Arrangements were made so that the McPhee people be buried in a special section 01 the cemetery and the memories of them will be kept alive, she said.