St. Joseph Aid Cemetery-Montana City Cemetery

St. Joseph Aid Cemetery-Montana City Cemetery. . , During the era of segregation, there were few options for Tampa's African American community for burying loved ones. The two city cemeteries, Oaklawn and Woodlawn, were options, but as funerary practices changed in the early 20th century, families began to use private burial grounds. Private cemeteries were often restricted on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity, so some Black entrepreneurs and social organizations stepped in to address this problem. One such organization was the St. Joseph Aid Society, founded by the Rev. Thomas H. B. Walker. Though he spent the majority of his life in Jacksonville, Rev. Walker served as the minister of Tampa's Bowman Methodist Episcopal Church between 1907 and 1910. It was during this time, in 1907, that Rev. Walker purchased the land that became St. Joseph Aid Cemetery. Ownership was transferred from Rev. Walker and his wife to the Stone Funeral Home in 1928. Burials in the cemetery stopped around 1940, around the time that the funeral home lost the land to unpaid taxes-even though cemeteries are tax exempt. Three homes were built on the property in 1956, and another was built in 1924. The rest of the land is owned by the Greater Mount Carmel AME Church.