Flagstaff rewards the tombstone tourist. Citizens Cemetery, across South San Francisco Street from NAU, holds the town's founders, its disasters, and at least one astronomer, all beneath gnarled old trees. If you have ever pulled over to wander a cemetery you had no relative in, this one is for you.
What is a taphophile?
A taphophile, also called a tombstone tourist or grave hunter, is anyone who enjoys walking a cemetery, reading the epitaphs, hunting down a particular gravestone, or making a rubbing. If you are a ghost hunter, you are probably a taphophile even if you did not know the word. Co-founder Susan Johnson comes by it honestly: an Irish Catholic mother from a large family who never passed a cemetery she did not want to explore dragged Susan and her brothers along on those adventures, through old Southern grounds in the Carolinas where rolling hills and dogwoods sat at odds with the grim granite markers.
Citizens Cemetery, Flagstaff's outdoor archive
Flagstaff has two historic cemeteries, both beautiful in their own eclectic ways, and Citizens is the one Susan calls her favorite. Inside the wrought iron gates, ancient trees with twisted roots dot the grounds, and walking the rows reads like a stroll through the town's past; for the darker chapters behind some of the names, start with Flagstaff's haunted history. The cemetery is divided into sections, including a large military area and two children's sections. Groundskeepers used to hand out a section map, but if you are just meandering for an afternoon, the epitaphs will orient you.
Who is buried in Citizens Cemetery?
Founders, disaster victims, and a man who measured the universe. In the southeast corner sits the TWA mass grave from the 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision, which took 128 lives, stood as the deadliest US aviation disaster of its era, and led directly to the creation of the FAA. Astronomer Vesto Slipher, who proved galaxy redshifts at Lowell Observatory, rests near the TWA memorial. In the Masonic section, a single double-wide plot holds Marie Walkup and her four children from the 1937 tragedy that co-founder Susan Johnson chronicled in her book The Walkup Family Murders; the case has its own post. Platt Cline, Jay Lively, and other familiar Flagstaff names are here too, their graves still tended by people who remember them.
Questions people ask
Is Citizens Cemetery open to the public?
Yes. Citizens Cemetery is open to the public, and the front gate closes at sundown, so plan a daylight visit.
Where is the TWA memorial?
In the back of the cemetery, technically the southeast side. It marks the mass grave for victims of the 1956 mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon.
Walk this story
The gates close at sundown, which is when our stories pick up downtown. The Flagstaff Haunted History Tour runs nightly at 7 PM, with an 8 PM walk added Fridays and Saturdays: 75 minutes, $29 for adults, and plenty of the people you just read about come up along the way. Consider it the living end of a good cemetery stroll.
Boo.
