National Cemetery work underway

The Fort Scott National Cemetery is getting a makeover.

Several repairs and renovation projects are either planned or currently underway at the 147-year-old cemetery to make its appearance more appealing to visitors, among other reasons, according to Fort Scott National Cemetery Director William Owensby.

"We're going to totally redo everything to make it looks nice and presentable, to where it truly honors the veterans that are buried there," Owensby said.

The main gates of the cemetery have been closed since May 3 and will remain closed for about two months while a few projects are being completed.One project involves raising and realigning the flat and upright stones in the older sections of the cemetery and replacing the turf in the cemetery's burial area. Another project involves a complete rebuild of the old stone wall around the cemetery.

"We're going to bring the headstones up to the proper height," Owensby said. "Not all of them are the same height because they are from different eras and times ... different ages and wars."

A new water irrigation system will be placed in the cemetery and the roads inside the cemetery will be milled and resurfaced.

The wall around the cemetery was falling down, and crews will rebuild it to appear as it once did years ago. To preserve the wall's history, many of the original stones and wall caps from the wall will be used to complete the new wall.

"We'll be replacing as much rock as possible in the new wall using rock from the old wall," Owensby said.

Workers also plan to use copper channels from the original wall -- which are still in good condition -- for the new wall. The benefit of the channels, Owensby said, is that any water or rainfall flows out to the end of the wall and not down the center of the wall.

Portions of the wall that run through the cemetery will be brought down to less than three feet in height to allow visitors to sit and relax while viewing headstones, Owensby said.

All of the projects are being completed to ensure that the cemetery meets the National Cemetery Administration's standards of appearance for national cemeteries and that it is viewed as a national shrine by the public and visitors, officials said.

Owensby said the cemetery will be much more visually appealing once all the projects are completed.

"I humbly apologize for the inconvenience (to the public), but it will be so worth it," he said.

The projects will also help the cemetery meet the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' National Shrine Commitment, an initiative to maintain the appearance of national cemeteries in a manner befitting their status as national shrines, according to a news release from the FSNC.

The original iron gates at the cemetery's main entrance are also being fixed and the columns are being reworked.

The entire cemetery renovation project is scheduled for completion by September 2011, although the irrigation system project and the road improvement project should be complete this summer. While the cemetery gates are being worked on, no vehicles will be allowed inside, but visitors may still enter the cemetery on foot, Owensby said.

Due to the projects, the annual Memorial Day service at the cemetery will take place at the interment shelter located on the south side of the cemetery grounds. Area residents who wish to attend the service may use the side entrance located on the south side of the cemetery.

A future project that is in the planning stage but could start this fall will involve restoring the cemetery's main building back to its original look, Owensby said.

The cemetery benefits from a caring and dedicated staff who play key roles in helping Owensby manage the cemetery.

"There are people putting a lot of care into that cemetery," he said. "I couldn't ask for a better staff. They're the ones who do the hard work. I owe it to the staff who are getting the work done."