About Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum

Lainey Seyler, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
93. To walk in the Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum is to stroll through Milwaukee history, including from when Native tribes lived in the area. Walk among the gravestones, and you’ll encounter names you’ll recognize: Allis, Pfister, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz.
93. To walk in the Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum is to stroll through Milwaukee history, including from when Native tribes lived in the area. Walk among the gravestones, and you’ll encounter names you’ll recognize: Allis, Pfister, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz.

Next to large mausoleums, towering monuments and bronze-cast sculptures on Milwaukee’s south side, you’ll also notice many more humble markers: Mother, father, wife, daughter.

Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum is the final resting place of Milwaukee’s founders, pioneers, industrialists and beer barons, but it’s also home to soldiers, children, barbers and teachers.

Towering oaks shade gravestones arranged seemingly haphazardly. It’s more of a park than a graveyard, and that was by design. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which established the cemetery in 1850, wanted to embrace the rolling hills and looming trees.

To walk in the cemetery is to stroll through Milwaukee history, including from when Native tribes lived in the area. There are graves for 64 people who died in the Newhall House fire in 1883. There’s a recently added marker recognizing the 1861 lynching of George Marshall Clark. You’ll find graves for veterans dating from the Civil War to present. And walk among the gravestones, and you’ll be sure to encounter some names you’ll recognize: Allis, Pfister, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: About Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum

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