Springdale mulls cemetery work contract

SPRINGDALE — A new agreement may bring extra care and service to the city’s historic Bluff Cemetery.

Brad Baldwin, the city’s director of engineering and public works, recommended the city enter an agreement with Burton Cemetery Service in Hindsville to cut grass in the cemetery for $37,400 a year. The agreement will run through 2020, Baldwin told City Council members as they met in committees Monday night.

But the Burton staff will do more than cut grass, Baldwin said. The company will take over all year-round maintenance of the cemetery. This includes removing dead flowers, downed branches, trash and other debris. The company also will add topsoil to level graves and ruts.

“We were looking at a way to become more efficient and save some of the money it takes to cut grass,” Baldwin said. “Now, we get to combine other services with cutting grass.”

Baldwin said the company with which the city contracts to cut grass along some city rights of way wanted $67,381 to cut and trim grass in the cemetery for just 28 weeks of the growing season.

As a part of the agreement with the cemetery services company, the city will give Burton rights to open and close graves in Bluff Cemetery. Individual funeral clients will continue to pay for these services.

Burton currently opens and closes 90 percent of the graves in Bluff Cemetery, Baldwin said.

Other information provided by Burton shows the company works with several local cemeteries exclusively, including Hickory Creek, Silent Grove, Wilson, Mount Comfort and Kings. All Springdale funeral homes use only Burton to open and close graves.

“And we think they’ll take more care when they are working in the cemetery,” Baldwin said.

Under the agreement, Burton also will fix any broken graves and stones and charge the responsible parties for the damage. Typically, blame is passed around for damage resulting from mowing or other maintenance, Baldwin said.

“Now you have only one person you have to call,” Baldwin said. “We’ll know they did it, and they’ll take care of it.”

Historians find the establishment date of the cemetery to be elusive, said Rachel Whitaker, research specialist at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Grave markers show death dates to 1841, but in 1895, graves were moved from around the Shiloh Church to Bluff Cemetery. The two-story wooden church building dating to 1871 underwent a recent renovation and serves the city as the Shiloh Meeting Hall.

John Holcombe, credited with the founding of Springdale, was buried in Bluff after his death in 1876.

The website historicwashingtoncounty.org says the cemetery was used before the Civil War.

The Bluff Cemetery Association was organized in 1906 to care for the cemetery.

The association deeded the cemetery to the city in 1972.