Glendale Cemetery

Glendale Cemetery is an 88-acre burial ground in Akron, Ohio, designed in the picturesque manner of the nineteenth-century Rural Cemetery Movement. It started as the Akron Rural Cemetery, took in the eight-acre Oak Openings cemetery in 1850, and gained a western section shortly before 1891. Hills and plateaus flank a central valley that opens into a broad meadow, and Cypress Avenue winds through as the main spine. Along it stand mausoleums in Classical, Egyptian, Gothic, Romanesque, Arts and Crafts and Moderne styles, many with bronze doors, marble interiors and stained glass. The oldest, the Commins vault of 1860, shows Egyptian Revival influence. Four earlier-listed structures stand near the entrance: an office building, a caretaker's residence, a memorial chapel and a bell tower. The cemetery was recognized for its landscape design, its architecture, and its connection to Akron's social history, with a significance period of 1839 to 1929.