Wannabe History Buff Tours Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans (Famous Marble Tombs, Funeral Statuary)

Metairie Cemetery is a cemetery in southeastern Louisiana. The name has caused some people to mistakenly presume that the cemetery is located in Metairie, Louisiana, but it is located within the New Orleans city limits, on Metairie Road (and formerly on the banks of the since filled-in Bayou Metairie).
Before becoming a cemetery, the site, established on a high-and-dry ridge along Bayou Metairie (now Metairie Road), was a horse racing track, founded in 1838 by Col. James Garrison and Richard Adams who acquired the land from the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company. Its first president was Alexander Barrow and board of governors included: George B. Mulligan, Thomas W. Chinn, Balie Peyton, Samuel Jarvis Peters, Thomas J. Wells, George B. Ogden (President of New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, and Miner Kenner.
The racetrack, which was owned by the Metairie Jockey Club, refused membership to Charles T. Howard, a local resident who had gained his wealth by starting the first Louisiana State Lottery. After being refused membership, Howard vowed that the racecourse would become a cemetery. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the track went bankrupt, and Howard was able to see his curse come true. Today, Howard is buried in his tomb located on Central Avenue in the cemetery, which was built following the original oval layout of the track itself. Mr. Howard died in 1885 in Dobbs Ferry, New York, when he fell from a newly purchased horse.
Metairie Cemetery was previously owned and operated by Stewart Enterprises, Inc., of Jefferson, Louisiana. However, in December 2013, Service Corporation International bought Metairie Cemetery and other Stewart locations.
Metairie Cemetery has the largest collection of elaborate marble tombs and funeral statuary in the city. One of the most famous is the Army of Tennessee, Louisiana Division monument, a monumental tomb of Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War.
#cemetery #graveyard #mausoleum #gothic