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Adams County CemeteriesAdams County was originally part of Arapahoe County. In 1901, residents voted to form a new county, and a county was formed in 1902. Brighton is the county seat. John "Colonel Jack" Henderson built the first permanent settlement in 1859. The settlement held his ranch, but also a hotel and a trading post. Almost all traces of "Henderson's Island" have faded from memory, the site is now the Adams County Regional Park and Fairgrounds. The area grew as a farming center to support the city of Denver, and Brighton was the first incorporated town, founded in 1887. Brighton had the first railroad depot in the area. When it was founded, the county went from Sheridan Blvd, east to the Kansas border. The border was shorten to its present 72-mile width in 1903, when Washington and Yuma Counties were formed. Of the 11 Adams County Cemeteries, the oldest is the Pioneer Cemetery, which grew from the Black family's private burial grounds. It dates from 1864, and only a handful of markers remain. The largest cemetery in the county is Riverside Cemetery. The office is located in Denver, but most of the grounds are part of Adams County. Nearby is Brighton's largest resting spot, Elmwood Cemetery. Established in 1895, it is within sight of the community's first burial grounds. It is well maintained, and has an office, staffed from 8:00-5:00 Monday through Friday. Rose Hill Cemetery, in Commerce City, is a Jewish cemetery, and burials began there in 1892. It is the oldest of the Jewish resting places in the metro area after Mt. Prospect, Denver's original city cemetery, which had a Jewish section, closed in 1893. Several small church cemeteries reside in the county, including the Wesley Chapel Cemetery and St. Clair Ross Cemetery, which was a burial site for the United Brethren Church. Both these sites no longer have church buildings on the property. |
