This vignette is a part of Mirror Indy’s reporting on Greenlawn Cemetery. Read more here.

Even before Keystone Group’s crews leveled most of 402 Kentucky Ave. in preparation for the Eleven Park development, there were no markers to indicate the individuals still buried there.

Some graves never had markers. Others were poorly kept, and still others were removed as the site was prepared for industry. It’s not always clear that the bodies below were moved with them.

Take, for example, a 1925 account in the Indianapolis News titled “Bones of Unknown Dead Fall Prey to the Steam Shovel.” 

The paper describes “a small pile of bones” next to a large pit being dug into the cemetery, which “again is suffering from the encroachments of commercial and civic enterprise.”

“No action has been taken for the proper internment of these remains, though the matter was mentioned at the last meeting of the board of works. At present they lie on the ground,” the paper said.

As industry sprouted up around the cemeteries, thousands of people were reinterred to make room for factories and railyards. Some people had their loved ones reinterred, if they could pay for it.

Many others have been taken from their final resting place with no regard to who they were. They became victims of graverobbing or cadavers for medical students. Others were washed down the White River by floods.

Those who are found at Greenlawn Cemetery will be exhumed with more care and examined in a lab at IUPUI. We’ll learn about their race, gender, health and even their diet. 

With no plans for a comprehensive archaeological dig, those who are not found likely will be buried forever. 

For now, all of their names will remain a mystery.

Reach Mirror Indy reporter Emily Hopkins at 317-790-5268 or emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis.