Abandoned Cemeteries

The following are abandoned cemeteries in El Paso County with no marked graves and no known records of those buried there. If any markers or names exist, the cemetery has its own page. Unless otherwise noted, information is from the 1985 Colorado Cemetery Directory.

Colorado City No. 1 Cemetery
Said to be the first cemetery in the Colorado Springs area, this cemetery was established in 1859. It was located on a ridge between Red Rock Canyon and the old Colorado-Philadelphia reduction works, northwest of the present junction of 31st Street and Highway 24. The site was chosen because it protected burial parties from surprise attack by Indians. It was abandoned because during the winter the ground was too hard to dig.

Colorado City No. 2 Cemetery
Said to be the second cemetery in the Colorado Springs area, this cemetery was established in 1859. It was located at old Jefferson and Lincoln Streets, currently in the block between 25th and 26th Streets and West Pikes Peak and West Kiowa Avenues in Colorado Springs. It was abandoned in 1869 and all burials reportedly moved to the Old County Cemetery.

Old County Cemetery a k a DRG Cemetery
Located at what is now Sierra Madre and Vermijo Streets in Colorado Springs, this cemetery was established in 1860. M.D. Ormes's Book of Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs: Denton Printing Co., 1933) says that by the time Colorado Springs was established in 1871, there were between 200 and 300 graves on less than an acre of ground, which was clearly visible from the Denver & Rio Grande railroad depot. Because the new city was being promoted as a health resort and such a scene was startling if not disconcerting to new arrivals, the city closed the cemetery and moved the burials to Evergreen Cemetery.

Falcon Cemetery
This cemetery was located southeast of the town of Falcon in Section 7, Township 13 South, Range 64 West. No markers remain of the three or four graves located here.

Green Mountain Falls Cemetery
Some people have told PPGS cemetery project volunteers that relatives were buried in the early part of the 1900s in a cemetery at Green Mountain Falls, a community close to the Teller County border in Ute Pass. However, searches in area plat maps and interviews with longtime residents turned up nothing. If anyone has further information about this cemetery, please contact PPGS.

Jimmy Camp Coal Mine Cemetery
The exact location of this cemetery with four or five graves is unknown. Jimmy Camp is located east of Colorado Springs, northwest of the junction of Highway 94 and Jimmy Camp Creek; the cemetery is probably in Section 9 or 10 of Township 14 South, Range 65 West. The abandoned coal mines are thought to be south and southeast of Jimmy Camp.

Maring Tombstone
The following article appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Nov. 8, 1935.

MARBLE TOMBSTONE, WASHED DOWN BY FLOOD ON MEMORIAL DAY, FOUND IN M. V. PARK

Crews working in Monument Valley park have found a marble tombstone, inscribed with the name of Jacob M. Maring, evidently an 8-year-old boy, imbedded in the sands of the creek, apparently washed there by the Memorial day flood.

The stone, of white marble, is a foot thick, two feet wide and two and one-half feet high. The inscription says:

"Maring
Jacob M.
1900-1908"

A letter "M" encircled by a wreath appears at the head of the stone.

Where the tombstone came from is an unsolved mystery, as no one has been found who knows of a cemetery in the area hit by the Memorial day flood. Officials believe it may have been washed from the west slope of the Black forest, altho no burial ground is known to have existed there.
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It is not known what happened to this Maring tombstone after its 1935 discovery in the Fountain creek bed in Colorado Springs. The 30 May 1935 flood devastated Colorado Springs.

Washington Catholic Cemetery
In 1879, Frank Finnegan purchased land and donated a portion of it to the Catholic church for use as a cemetery. The cemetery was located at 924 West Pikes Peak Avenue, north of Ninth and Tenth Streets and Pikes Peak Avenue in Colorado Springs. He sold adjoining land to H.T. Williams in 1886, and ensuing friction about the cemetery prompted the city to deed a portion of Evergreen Cemetery to the Catholic church. All burials were then moved to Evergreen Cemetery.

World War II Prisoner-of-War Cemetery
Located near Gate 3 of the current Fort Carson, this cemetery was used during World War II when Camp Carson housed a prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, all burials were shipped back to their homelands. The following photo of the cemetery appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette, August 7, 2001, page Life3.