Wind Damage to Historic Fort Douglas Post Cemetery

Fort Douglas Post Cemetery.

Photo/NPS

Hurricane level winds measured at up to 112 mph knocked down hundreds of big trees in Salt Lake City on Sept. 8, 2020. Some fallen trees damaged graves and headstones at historic Fort Douglas Post Cemetery, near the University of Utah campus.

The 3.26-acre military cemetery was established in 1862 by Col. Patrick Edward Connor, later known for leading the winter massacre of hundreds of starving Shoshone men, women and children at Bear River, near today's Preston, Idaho, in 1863. The offensive was meant to put an end to Shoshone raids on area settlers and travelers on the overland trails through the region. Connor (d. 1891) and some of his California Volunteers who died in the fighting are buried here, along with other military and government dignitaries, African American soldiers from the 1890s, later servicemen, soldiers' family members, and German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war from World War II. Also interred at this historic cemetery is Private William Gentles, who fatally bayoneted the famed Lakota fighter Crazy Horse while trying to force him into a guardhouse at Camp Robinson, Nebraska, in 1877. Fort Douglas Post Cemetery is part of the Fort Douglas National Historic Landmark.