Established in 1851, Mount Mora owes its current design to W. Angelo Powell in 1872. Like most of the cemeteries I show, this is a product of the rural cemetery movement begun at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
For a city of St. Joseph’s size, there are an insane number of mausolea! It just goes to show that that claim there were more millionaires per capita in the city than anywhere in America could very well be true.
These mausolea are on the southwest side of the main road.
Below is the view looking down towards the entrance.
Below are the mausolea on the northeast side of the road.
I was surprised at the large amount of the Egyptian Revival per capita.
The mausolea…incredible. My St. Louis ancestors had modest grave markers but my New Orleans branch has an elaborate one similar to these in Metairie. I’ve always been curious about the architects of these beautiful monuments and how they were constructed. Thank you for all of your posts, it’s valuable work.
Thank you! In general, architects of mausolea tended to build regular buildings and would dabble in cemetery architecture.
Yes, ‘regular building’ architects were known to do this. Many of these were designed by Edmond Jacques Eckel and a few by Walter Boschen, who doesn’t get enough credit for his contributions to St. Joseph, Missouri architecture.