The Wright City Cemetery is the resting place for some Warren County residents who lived and died in the 1800s.One man, Strother Jefferson McGinnis, was born in 1807 and buried in the cemetery in 1853. He had lived in Harrodsburg, Ky., before coming to Wright City. During his life he was married once and fathered six children.“He was the first person buried there,” said Jerry Prouhet.Prouhet is a researcher for the Wright City Memorial Society and a member of the Warren County Historical Society. He said the Wright City Cemetery has more than 3,000 graves. He said people still choose to be buried there.He volunteers for cemetery projects to pay respect.“These are the people who made the area what it is,” he said. “It’s out of respect. It’s the right thing to do.”The cemetery entrance is located where the North Service Road meets State Highway J.Volunteers help maintain the landscaping and keep the cemetery clean. Youth groups and other clubs will come to do community service projects, like setting flags on veterans’ headstones.The city owns Wright City Cemetery, and volunteers with the Wright City Memorial Society oversee its maintenance and care. It never was connected with a church.The cemetery and the society have a long history. The town was laid out in 1857. Prouhet said the property was owned by the town’s namesake, Dr. Henry C. Wright and his wife Frances. In 1876, the trustees of the town purchased four acres from Wright for $100 to establish a city cemetery. The Wright City Memorial Society was established in 1888.Today the group has 15 members to preserve, maintain and improve the cemetery. Among them are Jean Engelage, Marie Hollenbeck and Prouhet.The old headstones were a soft limestone. Some broke apart over time, making them hard to read. Today they are a hard granite and can withstand extreme weather. Hollenbeck said Prouhet is leading a volunteer effort to clean and repair some of the gravestones.Prouhet’s interest in graves and cemeteries started in 2009 when he was looking into his own ancestry. He said he came across findagrave.com and the Wright City Cemetery. He saw that the Wright City Cemetery lacked information and began a personal mission to make it better for descendants and to honor the dead.Hollenbeck said Prouhet identified all the veterans buried there. He compiled a list of all the burials in the cemetery and posted them on findagrave.com. He been adding photos and all the historical information he can find about each person buried there.The cemetery, however, has a limited budget. Volunteers operate the cemetery with donated funds.“The society relies on donations from benevolent individuals; often donations are given in memory of an individual,” Hollenbeck said.Maintenance, water runoff and landscaping are some of the biggest concerns there.“The society is beginning a program to restore some of the cemetery grounds where the soil is poor and rocky and grass has been slow to take root,” Hollenbeck said. “Plans were to begin the project in one area of the cemetery last fall, but because of the extremely dry conditions, the project was delayed.”The cemetery lacks a water supply. Planting and reseeding projects wait until the rainy season.“We also launched a tree planting program three years ago. Many of the stately white oak trees in the cemetery have suffered during recent droughts and are showing signs of deterioration and will likely need to be removed in the coming years,” Hollenbeck said. “An effort is underway to plant trees now so these trees will be established when the older trees must be removed.”People can make a donation to the tree planting fund or purchase a tree in honor of an individual.They hope to improve a retaining wall and have other smaller landscaping and maintenance projects.Volunteers and donations are always welcome. For more information, call Wright City City Hall at 636-745-3101.

The Wright City Cemetery was established on land once owned by the town's founder, Dr. Henry C. Wright. Today more then 3,000 people are buried there. Volunteers maintain the landscaping and structures with the help of donations. 

Record photo/Derrick Forsythe