{"nrhp_refnum":"11000245","name":"Alton National Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"600 Pearl St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Alton","county":"Madison County","state":"IL","lat":38.890030000000024,"lon":-90.16392999999994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2011-05-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Military","Social History","Landscape Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A half-acre national cemetery at 600 Pearl Street in Alton, Madison County, Illinois, set on a steep hill within the Alton City Cemetery. It began as a Union soldiers' lot in 1862 and has a 1941 rostrum and entrance gate.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery is significant under Criterion A for its association with the development of the Civil War-era national cemeteries. It began as a soldiers' lot for Union dead, passed to the federal government in 1940, and was officially designated a national cemetery in 1948. It closed to new burials in 1961.","narrative":"Alton National Cemetery occupies a half-acre rectangular lot on a steep, grassy hill within the Alton City Cemetery at 600 Pearl Street. It began in 1862 as a soldiers' lot where the Union Army buried men who died at the local post hospital or aboard steamboats on the Mississippi. The federal government maintained the lot for decades, received title in 1940 after the Alton Cemetery Association donated it, and designated it a national cemetery in 1948. Works Progress Administration funds paid for a two-story concrete rostrum and wrought-iron entrance gates, built in 1941. Burials include veterans of the Civil War, Mexican War, Spanish-American War, both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam, with about 200 Union soldiers among them. The grounds also hold a POW/MIA flagpole and a Gettysburg Address plaque installed in 2009. The cemetery filled in 1961 and is closed, with 531 interments recorded in 2010.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1862-1961","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A"],"status_note":"The cemetery reached capacity in 1961 and remains closed to new interments; it held 531 interments as of May 2010.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.73324-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_AL/11000245.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000245/16d0f440b6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000245/16d0f440b6-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alton_National_Cemetery.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alton_National_Cemetery.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77835374","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_National_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4736901"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/madison-county/alton-national-cemetery-11000245/"}