Wyandotte County has an unusual number of ‘abandoned’ cemeteries that residents pitch in to maintain

Nakia Hope-Paul remembers going to visit the Old Quindaro Cemetery ever since she was a little girl. Whenever she pays her respects, she admires the Signal Tree, which has stood watch over the cemetery since Quindaro was founded in 1854 in what is now northeast Kansas City, Kansas. Years ago, abolitionists would hang flags on the tree’s branches to warn people at the bottom of the bluffs about slave catchers patrolling the hillside. More than 4,000 gravesites are recorded between two cemeteries in Quindaro, according to the Wyandotte County Historical Museum. You can find headstones for Civil War veterans, Native Americans, people who escaped slavery and abolitionists. While neighbors like Hope-Paul take it upon themselves to tend to the gravesites and preserve Quindaro’s legacy, the cemetery is legally considered abandoned.  Cemeteries like it are scattered across Wyandotte County — 18 in total, with tens of thousands of graves. That’s unusually high compared to the rest of the state — Wichita only has two — and even the country. Local historians and the local government don’t have a good answer for why. 
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