Visit three of the region's most extraordinary graveyards, including one for circus performers and another that is over 1,000 years old
Cemeteries are for the living just as much as they are for those who have passed on. Here, in Hillsborough County, three unique burial grounds are among those that hold historical significance.
Showmen's Rest Cemetery
Tampa's Showmen's Rest Cemetery is one of several burial grounds in America dedicated to former carnival, circus, and outdoor amusement workers.
The graveyard's proximity to Gibsonton, also known as the "Sideshow Capital of the World," is no coincidence. The area was famous for attracting carnival and circus workers looking to retire or simply rest during the off season. The warm weather in the winters was one draw, another was Gibsonton's nearness to the Ringling Brothers Circus' winter home in Sarasota.
Notable figures laid to rest in the cemetery include Grady Stiles, whose stage name was "Lobster Boy," and "The Human Cannonball," Edmondo Zacchini.
Showmen's Rest Cemetery, which is adjacent to Woodlawn Cemetery, is at the corners of North Boulevard and West Indiana Avenue, in Tampa's Riverside Heights neighborhood.
Oaklawn and St. Louis Cemetery
Tampa's first public burial ground, Oaklawn Cemetery, opened in 1850, three years before the city itself was officially established. A portion of the grounds contain St. Louis Cemetery, a smaller graveyard established in 1874.
Together, the combined burial grounds serve as a final resting place for people from all walks of life. Pirates, judges, slaves, mobsters, veterans of eight wars, thirteen Tampa mayors, and one Florida governor share common ground here.
At least three mass graves are contained within Oaklawn and St. Louis Cemetery. These include one for victims of the yellow fever epidemics that plagued Tampa through the later nineteenth century, one dedicated to "29 sea captains and marines" (according to the headstone's epitaph), and a third for 102 settlers and soldiers that were originally interred at Fort Brooke.
In 2017, Oaklawn and St. Louis Cemetery was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The grounds are also notable for possibly being one of the few (if not only) public places in Hillsborough County that you can see a bunya pine, a unique tree native to Australia.
Oaklawn and St. Louis Cemetery is at 606 E. Harrison St., Tampa, FL, 33602.
Big Cockroach Mound
Three miles west of Sun City, a mound rises 30+ feet out of Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve's waters. The land mass is known as Big Cockroach Mound, or Cockroach Key, and is part of a human-made midden complex thought to be constructed between 100 and 900 CE.
Middens are large heaps, built up over many centuries of Indigenous occupation, consisting of animal bones and shells, broken pottery, and other community refuse. Some middens, like Big Cockroach Mound, were also found to contain Native Americans graves.
A Works Progress Administration project conducted in the 1930s identified remains of at least 224 people in the mound, though it's likely more are buried throughout the midden complex. Many of the unearthed remains belong to young children, possibly pointing to an epidemic in the area long ago.
In 1973, Big Cockroach Mound was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Archaeological and historical significance aside, the mound, along with other middens dotting Tampa Bay's perimeter, are held in high regard. One reason being that local legend credits the mounds and the Indigenous people who built them with protecting the area from a direct hurricane hit, something the region has not experienced since 1929.
Big Cockroach Mound can only be accessed by boat and is currently closed. However, visitors can enjoy views of the midden complex from Cockroach Bay Nature Preserve.
For more information about burial grounds in Hillsborough County, visit County Cemeteries.