A haunting tale in Kingman, Arizona awaits discovery with Kingman Tours. The urban legend about bodies buried under the high school football field are true!

Adding the Pioneer Cemetery as a point of interest on this self guided, narrated QR code based walking tour deveoped by Talisman Magic Marketing for Kingman Main Street will add a macabre chapter to the story of the town’s history. This is a teaser to whet the appetite.

A Haunting Tale

An article published by the Las Vegas Review Journal in 2010 detailed a discovery that confirmed a local urban legend was in fact true. Quote, “That bodies are buried under a high school football field and adjacent parking lot is more than folklore. Many long-term residents have known that part of the Kingman Unified School District campus was built over the top of the partially relocated Pioneer Cemetery. That was the primary burial ground from 1900 to 1917 for the city, which is about 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

Earlier this week they were reminded that some of the bodies are still there. Human bones and suspected coffin fragments were unearthed Wednesday as construction crews dug a trench in an effort to install a new sewer to serve the campus and portions of the downtown area. Fifteen to 20 bones and bone fragments were found in a four-foot stretch of the trench near the football field where games have been played for decades.

The disturbed remains were no longer confined to wood caskets that apparently deteriorated into dust long ago according to Oz Enderby, director of construction for the school district. The Mohave County medical examiner was called to recover the remains and work was stopped as required by law. The coroner, school district representatives and county officials huddled Thursday to determine what should be done with more than 100 feet of trench left to dig across the former cemetery plot.”

An Urban Legend proved true

This was not the first-time gruesome discoveries had been made on school grounds. During construction of the high school in 1959, human remains were unearthed. These were placed in containers beneath a monument built next to the student parking lot. Then in 1972 during expansion of the Kingman High School, more bones were unearthed.

The football field is the site of Pioneer Cemetery. Surprisingly this was Kingman’s third cemetery. It was used from 1900 thru 1917. Then, after the opening of Mountain View Cemetery on Stockton Hill Road in 1917, most bodies were relocated from the old cemetery. But there was a fee. Bodies not claimed by family or friends, and bodies in unmarked graves, were left behind. Then in 1944, the Pioneer Cemetery was officially abandoned.

The number of bodies that were left at the Pioneer Cemetery is unknown. But records were not kept for all burials. And many of the records proved to be inaccurate. Compounding problems associated with identifying graves were the pre 1909 death certificates that seldom noted a burial location. And many had misspelled names. There were also graves used for multiple unidentified bodies over a period of time. 

A troubling tale

 On May 8, 1915, a published article in the local paper detailed a gruesome discovery near Burn’s Ranch in the Blue Ridge Range. Quote, “They found the remains in a deep canyon, and while the bones were somewhat scattered, they were nearly all recovered. Nearly all the equipment of a prospector were found, but the blankets and canvas had rotted. An axe handle and rotted tool bag had the initials W.H.F. It is believed that the remains are those of W.H. Bill Fitch that disappeared from Burns Ranch in August 1905. If so, he would have been about age 73 at his death. The remains will be brought to Kingman and buried in the paupers’ graves at the cemetery.”

A twisted tale

I did most of the reasearch for the Kingman Tours project. One of the surprising things discovered was the location of earlier cemeteries.

The first Kingman cemetery was located at Fifth and Spring Streets. This would near the location of the former Methodist Episcopal church where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard married in 1939. That church is also a point of interest on the tour.

Information about this cemetery has proved elusive. But indications are that this site was used briefly. A more formal cemetery was established along what is now Kier Street on the south side of the railroad tracks.

Work on Mountain View Cemetery commenced in early 1916. A legal notice published in the Arizona Republican dated May 29, 1915, noted that a claim had been filed with the Department of the Interior Untied States Land Office for property to be used as a cemetery. The notice listed Mrs. J. P. Gideon, wife of Sheriff J.P. Gideon, as president of the Mountain View Cemetery Association.

Urban legend

In 1948, the 7th and 8th grade classes were moved to the new Kingman Junior High School near the high school on First Street. This was adjacent to the former cemetery. The complex has evolved over the years and as a result the historic abandoned cemetery was buried under portions of the school and the football field. This gave rise to the haunting tale that is rooted in truth.

A persistent part of this urban legend, however, has not been verified. According to some sources, when the junior high school was being constructed on the cemetery land, headstones that could not be read clearly were bulldozed into a nearby wash or were used as fill. Others were removed and stored at the county barn.

A monument dedicated on May 20, 1963, with a bronze plaque below a representation of an open Bible in marble, encased in stonework, dedicated by the Daughters of the Pioneers Group illustrates the confused history of Kingman’s early cemeteries. The plaque reads:

“WE HUMBLY DEDICATE THIS GROUND THE SITE OF KINGMAN’S FIRST CEMETERY IN MEMORY OF THE FOUNDING PIONEERS WHO WERE INTERRED IN THESE HALLOWED GROUNDS 1861-1920, ERECTED May 20, 1963.”

More to the story

The story doesn’t end there. Shortly after WWI, Kingman’s first airfield was built along Stockton Hill at the north end of Mountain View Cemetery. There is a persitent rumor that some graves in that cemetery weremoved to accommodate airfield construction.

And what of the bodies of at the first two cemeteries? To date no record has been found that those bodies were ever relocated.

Last but not least, there is the story of the parrots funeral. The parrot with a rather colorful vocabulary was well known in Kingman. It ensured that a local brothel was quite the attraction.

Urban legend is that the parrot was interred in Pioneer Cemetery with pomp and ceremony. That hasn’t been verified – yet. But the parrots headstone has been found!