{"nrhp_refnum":"75000254","name":"Mount Auburn Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"580 Mount Auburn St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cambridge","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.37056432400004,"lon":-71.14403328504099,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-04-21","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"2003-05-27","areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 170-acre privately owned garden cemetery on the Cambridge-Watertown line in Massachusetts, laid out in 1831-32 by Alexander Wadsworth on a glacial moraine site that includes ponds, knolls and a 136-foot hill.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it America's first rural garden cemetery and one of the best preserved of its type. Its informal, curving plan set the pattern for later cemeteries and influenced public parks such as Central Park and Franklin Park. It also holds notable monuments, sculpture and buildings, and the graves of many nationally known figures.","narrative":"Mount Auburn Cemetery is a 170-acre garden cemetery on the Cambridge-Watertown line, laid out in 1831-32 by Alexander Wadsworth for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Its winding roads and footpaths follow the natural topography of a glacial moraine with ponds, knolls and a 136-foot hill, and the original road pattern remains virtually intact. The nomination describes it as America's first rural garden cemetery and one of the best preserved. Its informal plan broke from the rigid rows of churchyard burial grounds and shaped later cemeteries such as Laurel Hill, Greenwood and Forest Hills, as well as public parks like Central Park and Franklin Park. Buildings include the Egyptian Revival gate of 1843, Bigelow Chapel, a granite lookout tower of 1853 and Story Chapel of 1897. More than 70,000 interments are marked by monuments in many styles. Buried here are Louis Agassiz, Charles Bulfinch, Dorothea Dix, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Winslow Homer.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Alexander Wadsworth, Landscape Architect","architectural_style":"Romantic Picturesque, with Egyptian Revival gate and Gothic Revival chapels","criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition marked excellent and unaltered; occupied and in use as a cemetery and park. Some white marble structures and cast iron lot enclosures are badly deteriorated.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:53.640641-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/77/7959/63795977/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/75000254.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000254/f0cd00b2c2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000254/f0cd00b2c2-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Swampyank at en.wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Auburn_Cemetery_Fir_Avenue.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Swampyank at en.wikipedia</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:Mount_Auburn_Cemetery_Fir_Avenue.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63795977","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Auburn_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1950363"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/mount-auburn-cemetery-75000254/"}