The Strange Procession That Never Moves

In Maplewood Cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky, there stands one of the strangest memorial lots in the American South. Colonel Henry Wooldridge spent the final years of his life, from eighteen ninety-two until his death in eighteen ninety-nine, commissioning life-size statues of himself, his brothers, his sisters, his nieces, a favorite horse, and two hunting dogs. They ring his grave in a frozen gathering locals call "The Strange Procession That Never Moves."

Wooldridge himself is the only one actually buried there. None of the others interred in stone died nearby or requested it. The colonel simply wanted company for eternity, and he was wealthy enough to arrange it in stone.

Generations of Kentuckians have grown up treating the monument as both local landmark and gentle mystery, a reminder that the urge to be remembered can take forms nobody else quite anticipated.