{"nrhp_refnum":"84002147","name":"St. Luke's Lutheran Church Cemetery","other_names":["Sandy Springs Cemetery"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"SR 1183","address_restricted":false,"city":"Tyro","county":"Davidson County","state":"NC","lat":35.816855700000076,"lon":-80.37534682599994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-07-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural church cemetery of about 1.5 acres in Tyro, Davidson County, North Carolina, on the east side of SR 1183. It holds roughly 300 gravestones, the earliest inscribed with a death date of 1804, and is also known as Sandy Springs Cemetery.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery holds a unique collection of folk gravestones made by local stonecutters in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. The decorative soapstone markers with folk symbols for resurrection and eternity show the height of folk art among the Anglo-German farmers of north Davidson County. It also has early nineteenth-century markers by amateur carvers largely unaffected by the major stonecutting workshops.","narrative":"St. Luke's Lutheran Church Cemetery, also called Sandy Springs Cemetery, is a roughly 1.5-acre burying ground near Tyro in Davidson County, North Carolina. It contains about 300 gravestones, around 50 of them made locally, and the earliest inscribed date is 1804. The land traces to John Adam Swicegood, who deeded ground in 1790 for the first church, Sandy Creek Lutheran Church, which later moved to the present site and was renamed St. Luke's. Few of the major regional gravestone styles appear here, which suggests a small congregation outside the reach of most stonecutting workshops. The markers instead include crude fieldstones, tympanum-topped stones, work by the Master of the Upper and Lower Case, a Swisegood School stone, and marble stones signed by Lauder of Fayetteville and H. J. Hege. The cemetery was recognized for its collection of decorative soapstone folk markers, which carry symbols of resurrection and eternity and reflect the craft traditions of the area's Anglo-German farming community.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Stonecutters: Lauder (Fayetteville), H. J. Hege, and unknown others","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Condition is described as fair and deteriorated, with the site unaltered and in its original location. It is still in use as a cemetery.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:50.397271-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/65/7176/47717665/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/84002147.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717665","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Luke%27s_Lutheran_Church_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18392671"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/davidson-county/st-lukes-lutheran-church-cemetery-84002147/"}