Lexington Cemetery is a private, non-profit
rural cemetery
A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built one to five ...
and
arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, m ...
located at 833 W. Main Street,
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 57th-largest city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 28th-largest ...
.
The Lexington Cemetery was established in 1848 as a place of beauty and a public cemetery, in part to deal with burials from the
cholera epidemic
Seven cholera pandemics have occurred in the past 200 years, with the first pandemic originating in India in 1817. The seventh cholera pandemic is officially a current pandemic and has been ongoing since 1961, according to a World Health Organiz ...
in the area. It was designed by Charles S. Bell and John Lutz. It was originally 40 acres but has expanded to 170 acres with more than 64,000 interments.
Its plantings include
boxwood
''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood.
The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost Sout ...
,
cherries
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
,
crabapples,
dogwood
''Cornus'' is a genus of about 30–60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods, which can generally be distinguished by their blossoms, berries, and distinctive bark. Most are deciduous trees or shru ...
s,
magnolia
''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that form