National or State Registers Record
1407 La Crosse St
National or State Register of Historic Places
| Historic Name: | Oak Grove Cemetery |
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| Reference Number: | 100009621 |
| Location (Address): | 1407 La Crosse St |
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| County: | La Crosse |
| City/Village: | La Crosse |
| Township: |
| Oak Grove Cemetery 1407 La Crosse Street La Crosse, WI Oak Grove Cemetery originated in the mid-nineteenth century as a privately-owned secular cemetery known as Wautonga Cemetery (reportedly, a Native American term for “Oak Wood”). At that time, little attention was paid to landscape design or groundskeeping and the cemetery soon became heavily overgrown with broken fencing, weeds, and unkempt pathways. The Oak Grove Cemetery Association was formed in 1872 as a means of acquiring and improving the old cemetery grounds. Henry I. Bliss, secretary of the Oak Grove Cemetery Association and La Crosse County surveyor, drew plans for the site’s new landscape design. These plans represented the ideals of the Rural Cemetery Movement that had become popular in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. So-called “rural” cemeteries (named for their spacious and rustic landscapes rather than their locations) were typically located at the edges of the cities they were meant to serve and featured meandering pathways, heavy tree growth and other naturalistic plantings, and rolling topography that frequently rose to create scenic vistas. Site work began in 1878 and within about a year, the cemetery grounds had been completely redesigned. As additional space was needed after the turn of the twentieth century, the Cemetery Association hired Chicago landscape gardener John Thorpe to expand the cemetery to the east; Thorpe’s considerate design mirrored the original naturalistic aesthetic of the 1878 plan. Throughout its history, numerous monuments and memorials were installed at Oak Grove Cemetery, including grand memorials to Governor C.C. Washburn, Joseph Losey (long-time benefactor of the Oak Grove Cemetery Association), and area Civil War veterans. The site also became home to a sizable community mausoleum (constructed in the Neoclassical style in 1912) and several small family mausoleums. In addition, Oak Grove contains an especially fine and varied collection of smaller-scale burial markers and monuments that are excellent examples of American funerary art and architecture from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. |
| Period of Significance: | 1878-1973 |
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| Area of Significance: | Landscape Architecture |
| Applicable Criteria: | Architecture/Engineering |
| Historic Use: | Funerary: Cemetery |
| Historic Use: | Funerary: Graves/Burials |
| Architectural Style: | Art Deco |
| Architectural Style: | Classical Revival |
| Architectural Style: | Gothic Revival |
| Resource Type: | Site |
| Architect: | Thorpe, John (cemetery planner 1904-1910) |
| Architect: | Bliss, Henry Isaac (cemetery planner 1878) |
| Architect: | People's Mausoleum Company (builder, 1912 mausoleu |
| Architect: | Pond and Pond (1913 Hixon Family Monument) |
| Historic Status: | Listed in the State Register |
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| Historic Status: | Listed in the National Register |
| National Register Listing Date: | 12/11/2023 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 08/18/2023 |
| Number of Contributing Buildings: | 1 |
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| Number of Contributing Sites: | 1 |
| Number of Contributing Structures: | 3 |
| Number of Contributing Objects: | 5 |
| Number of Non-Contributing Sites: | 1 |
| Number of Non-Contributing Structures: | 3 |
| Number of Non-Contributing Objects: | 1 |
| National Register and State Register of Historic Places, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |