The Elusive Cemetery

The Elusive Cemetery. Cherokee-Lemp Historic District. Records indicate that during the mid-19th century, the entire section of land covering the two city blocks stretching from Cherokee north to Utah Street and Lemp west to Wisconsin served as a cemetery., The Map of St. Louis, published in 1867 by Theodore Schrader, described the land as "Baptist Cemetery." The only other area landmarks shown on the map are the U.S. Arsenal at the Mississippi River and Arsenal Street and the Marine Hospital on Marine Street east of Broadway., A St. Louis Genealogical Society Publication documents burials as early as 1848 in the Baptist Cemetery., The 1859 St. Louis Directory lists "Baptist Cemetery, Lemp avenue, between Cherokee and Utah," as the first of 16 cemeteries listed in alphabetical order. The list includes other nearby cemeteries long ago abandoned or removed -- the City Cemetery, which was transformed into Benton Park following the Civil War; German Evangelical Cemetery, on the grounds of Shepard School just south of Cherokee; and Old Picker, the current site of Roosevelt High School on Gravois., Pictorial St. Louis, drawn in 1875, however, shows no indication of a cemetery in the area previously designated Baptist Cemetery. Instead, over a dozen buildings appear scattered across the former cemetery grounds., What happened to the Baptist Cemetery between 1867 and 1875? How many people were buried in the Baptist Cemetery? And where are the bodies that were buried in this cemetery? The answers to these questions all remain mysteries.