{"nrhp_refnum":"90000688","name":"Forest Lawn Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"1411 Delaware Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Buffalo","county":"Erie County","state":"NY","lat":42.92831119750005,"lon":-78.86083424276985,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-05-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Art","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Forest Lawn Cemetery is a 267-acre rural cemetery at 1411 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, Erie County, New York, laid out in the mid-nineteenth century and expanded through the early twentieth century.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is an outstanding example of a designed rural cemetery that evolved from the mid-nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. It also holds a large body of period funerary art, mausolea, bridges, gates and buildings by known architects and sculptors. Burials include notable figures such as President Millard Fillmore.","narrative":"Forest Lawn Cemetery covers 267 acres in the center of Buffalo, about three miles from downtown. Its winding roads, lakes, creek and rolling bluffs follow the rural cemetery tradition, and a wrought iron fence encloses the grounds. The landscape began with a design by Charles C. Clarke, and engineer Joseph Earnshaw later expanded the road network. Buildings and structures include a Gothic limestone chapel from 1882, a Neo-classical administration building from 1907 by George Cary, a Beaux Arts Main Street gate from 1901 by Henry Osgood Holland, a Colonial Revival superintendent's residence, and four limestone arch bridges. Mausolea and monuments, among them the Letchworth-Skinner mausoleum, the Blocher memorial and the Orson Phelps monument, display Greek, Gothic, Romanesque and Egyptian Revival styles. Millard Fillmore is buried here. The cemetery was listed as a district for its landscape design and its funerary art, which together record regional burial customs from about 1850 to 1940.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Charles C. Clarke (initial cemetery design); Joseph Earnshaw (engineer/planner); George Cary (administration building, Delaware Avenue gate); Henry Osgood Holland (Main Street gate); Bley and Lyman (superintendent's residence); William Gratwick (landscape consultant)","architectural_style":"Rural cemetery","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still in use as a cemetery, with 63 contributing resources and 4 noncontributing buildings counted.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:44.990551-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/90000688.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000688/abdc996267-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000688/abdc996267-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Druszaj","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ForestLawnCemeteryBuffaloNewYork2009-05-21.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Druszaj</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:ForestLawnCemeteryBuffaloNewYork2009-05-21.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"82005029","name":"Delaware Park-Front Park System","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/delaware-park-front-park-system-82005029/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75317617","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Lawn_Cemetery_(Buffalo,_New_York)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5469014"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/erie-county/forest-lawn-cemetery-90000688/"}