Horse Had Own City Cemetery

Submitted by Martha J. Kounse

Written by Charles Collett, no date on newspaper

Names is Names--How many readers know the location of "Bone Yard Hollow?"  Just in case you never heard of the place, permit us to tell how it got its names.  It was the burial place for dead horses, mules and other animals.

Located in the hollow were two slaughterhouses owned and operated by a local butcher at the turn of the century.  That made the hollow a burying place for bones of steers,  heifers, calves and pigs, as well as the burial place for horses.  During that era, there were at least a thousand horses in town.

Streets were crowded with one and two horse delivery wagons.  Some of the larger wagons of coal companies and wholesale firms had four horses.  There were more hitching posts in town then there are parking meters today.  Each grocery store had a delivery wagon.  There were coal wagons, band wagon, milk wagons, and water wagons other than those spoke of in New Years resolutions.

The moving vans had horses and the brewer's big horse made delivery of kegs all over the city.  The ice plants had a fleet of horse drawn wagons and the baker made his deliveries driving a horse.  Each drayman drove his own horse, and the garbage carts were horse drawn.  So were the fire trucks, funeral cabs, hearse, hacks and patrol wagon.  Every doctor owned his own horse and buggy to visit the sick.. There were many horses other than those owned by the deliveryman to rent by the hour to young men who took their best girl on a Sunday afternoon drive.  That explains why a horse graveyard was necessary.

Bone Yard Hollow was just east of the old Kelly fairground, now known as Beechwood Park. Fifty years ago, the city pest house was located in the hollow.  Later, the location because the city incinerator.  That too, was abandoned years ago.  Perhaps that is why the grass is so green and the trees so beautiful.  If you want to take a look, park you car at the Big Boy drive-in on Campbell Drive, once known as the old Oz Road.  That is the gateway of the place once known as Bone Yard Hollow.

While typing about horses and mules, recalls that once there was a sign on Center Street in front of a harness shop that read like this:

TOTI EMUL ESTO  When properly spaced it read : "To Tie Mules To."