The Jefferson City Cemetery Resources Board will approach the Jefferson City Council about handing over ownership of the Woodland-Old City Cemetery to the state.
The board said during Thursday's meeting it wants to designate the city-owned Woodland-Old City Cemetery as a state historic site. Cemetery Resources Board Chair Nancy Thompson said the state would have more marketing resources than the city to promote the site.
"They have the network necessary to market this jewel," Thompson said. "They would have the ability to make information about it more widely available throughout the state because people come to Jeff City to tour the prison and they come here to tour the Capitol, and I think this would be one more thing that, if people were aware of, they would come to enjoy it."
Thompson said the cemetery needs several improvements, but the city does not have the resources to take care of all of them. Declaring the cemetery a state historic site might give the city and state another avenue to preserve it, she added.
A section of the cemetery along East McCarty Street is designated for burials of state government officials, and Thompson said the state did some landscaping repairs in the area over the last few years.
Jefferson City Environmental Health Manager David Grellner will present the board's idea to the council soon, Thompson said. If the council agrees to proceed with the board's plan, she said, the city then would talk with the state.
There are three cemeteries and graves in Missouri already designated as state historic sites: Gov. Daniel Dunklin's Grave Historic Site in Jefferson County, Sappington Cemetery Historic Site in Saline County and Jewel Cemetery Historic Site in Boone County.