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GC148.JPG

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Gatehouse Spring Grove Cemetery Cincinnati, Ohio The original carriage house/gatehouse to Spring Grove Cemetery now serves as a cemetery office. The design, with its French inspired mansard roof, is in keeping with much of the Victorian architecture of the nineteenth century. Gatehouses became a necessity at rural cemeteries such as Spring Grove, for cemetery guards to monitor traffic. Often cemeteries were the only type of open space for the less affluent to go to escape the pressures of big city life. Even as early as 1867, Spring Grove reported 149,019 visitors with more coming every year. Things got so hectic in the late 1860’s, that Spring Grove watchmen were equipped with pistols and ordered to shoot trespassers on sight, unless, of course, they could explain themselves. Most visitors who passed by this gate house arrived by omnibus (a horse drawn trolley) via a toll road that ran from Cincinnati to the cemetery. The more well heeled arrived by private carriage and buggy, but they needed a ticket to enter cemetery. A ticket would be issued free to lot holders or one could buy an annual ticket for $10.00 and the cost would be deducted from the price of a lot, when purchased. An idea not unlike some of the pre-need sales strategies employed by cemeteries today.