Cave Hill Cemetery
Near Louisville, Kentucky
Cave Hill Cemetery was chartered by the Kentucky General Assembly in February eighteen forty-eight and opened that July on what had been William Johnston's rural farm east of Louisville. It was designed in the Rural or Romantic style, rolling hills, winding paths, mature trees, at a moment when such landscaped cemeteries served as the city parks of their era.
More than a hundred thousand people are buried here, and the list reads like a roll call of Louisville history: George Rogers Clark, frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero; Kentucky Derby founder Meriwether Lewis Clark Junior; Pete Browning, whose custom bat helped inspire the Louisville Slugger; Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken; and Muhammad Ali. Cave Hill remains an active cemetery and an arboretum, its grounds open daily to visitors who come as much for the landscape as for the history.
