{"nrhp_refnum":"04001117","name":"Woodlawn Cemtery and Woodlawn National Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"Walnut and Davis Sts., West Hill and Bancroft Rds.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Elmira","county":"Chemung County","state":"NY","lat":42.11151011950005,"lon":-76.8280158723176,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2004-10-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Military"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A city rural cemetery (Woodlawn Cemetery, founded 1858) and the 10.5-acre Woodlawn National Cemetery contained within it, in northwest Elmira, Chemung County, New York. The combined site covers about 104 acres with buildings, gates, vaults, mausoleums and memorial gardens.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the city cemetery as a physical record of cemetery design trends, with a picturesque nineteenth-century rural section and an early twentieth-century memorial park section. It also holds the burials of nationally and locally important people, including Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Catherine and Thomas K. Beecher. The national cemetery holds over 8,000 burials, including nearly 3,000 Confederate soldiers who died in the Elmira prison camp in 1864-65.","narrative":"Woodlawn Cemetery in northwest Elmira, New York, opened in 1858 on fifty acres and now covers 104.2 acres. Its older portion follows the picturesque rural cemetery model, with curving gravel roads, mature trees and a natural ridge used for overlooks. Beyond the ridge, flatter ground holds twentieth-century memorial gardens, including the Companion Garden of 1945, designed by Ray F. Wyrick, whose markers each carry two names. Notable structures include rusticated stone entrance gates of 1890 and a Gothic Revival chapel of 1905, both by Pierce and Bickford, plus a 300-crypt mausoleum from 1910 and family vaults. Woodlawn National Cemetery, a 10.5-acre veterans' burial ground, sits inside the city cemetery and has 8,570 burials. Its oldest sections contain Spanish American War veterans and nearly 3,000 Confederate soldiers who died at the Elmira prison camp. The cemeteries also contain the graves of Samuel Clemens, known as Mark Twain, and the educators and ministers Catherine and Thomas K. Beecher.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Pierce and Bickford (entrance gates 1890, mortuary chapel 1905); Ray F. Wyrick (memorial gardens, 1945-1967)","architectural_style":"Rural cemetery and memorial park landscape; Gothic Revival chapel; neoclassical mausoleum","criteria":[],"status_note":"Woodlawn Cemetery is still active, with an average of about 300 interments a year. The national cemetery is maintained by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The 1905 chapel was converted to offices in 1960.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:54.114882-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/04001117.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001117/4afa6461cb-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001117/4afa6461cb-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Lvklock","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woodlawn_National_Cemetery.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Lvklock</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woodlawn_National_Cemetery.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75316848","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21482257"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/chemung-county/woodlawn-cemtery-and-woodlawn-national-cemetery-04001117/"}