We recently spent the day geocaching in Forest Park, Illinois and we visited a really interesting cemetery named Forest Home Cemetery. Forest Home was originally an old Indian burial ground until 1835. Then for awhile it was 2 separate cemeteries - Forest Home, established in 1877, and a German cemetery established in 1873 named Waldheim, which means Forest Home. The 2 cemeteries then merged in 1969. One of the charming aspects of this cemetery is that you can still see the original cobblestone pavement through the asphalt....
This cemetery has many historical features. One of them was the Massillon Bridge and there's a
geocache commemorating it. The original bridge was built in 1895. There's a lot of history about the Massillon Bridge Company and you can read about it
here if you like.
The bridge is extremely narrow and only one vehicle can pass over it at a time. Mom and dad searched for the geocache....
My favorite cache location at the cemetery was the
Ancient Indian trail. At one time an Indian trail skirted the forest and ran along the Des Plaines river. I like to imagine the Indians from another era walking along the same ground that we were standing on. I just think that's pretty cool.
The cemetery has several other historical markers including:
Civil War General
William Sooy Smith
Graves of two children lost in the 1903
Iroquois Theater Fire
Haymarket Monument
Personally I enjoy doing the cemetery caches because they are filled with local history. As long as the geocaches are placed with respect and don't disturb the graves or anybody visiting them, then I don't see a problem.
