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Founded in 1845, the cemetery was planned by Howard Daniels. The landscapist Adolph Strauch was hired in 1854 as the landscape gardener. So attractive was the cemetery that nineteenth-century Cincinnatians flocked to Spring Grove to spend afternoons. Spring Grove Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in the country boasting 782 acres, fourteen lakes, thirty-five miles of roads and over 850 labeled species of trees. It is also home to several important works of architecture and sculpture. James Wilson Keyes designed both the Administration Building (1863) and the Carriage House (1867) at the entrance to the cemetery. Both buildings are examples of Norman Gothic Revival, with modifications such as the Carriage House's mansard roof. The Norman Chapel (1880), designed by Samuel Hannaford, is in the Romanesque style with some Byzantine motifs. The Fleischmann Mausoleum (1913) that sits near Geyser Lake is modeled after a Greek Doric Temple. Randolph Roger's The Soldier of the Line (1864) stands high on a plinth commemorating the Cincinnatians who died during the Civil War. Hiram Powers designed the Nicholas Longworth Obelisk for the Longworth memorial. The obelisk was modeled after those appearing in Egypt, Greece and Rome. A blue marble sphinx, also derived from Egypt, memorializes Matthew and Ann Lawler. Yet another influence from Egypt is seen in the Eqyptian Revival Mausoleum commemorating the Robertson family. Gothic Revival is seen in several of the monuments in Spring Grove Cemetery, particularly in the Conrad Windisch memorial, the Robinson Mausoleum modeled after Paris's Sacre Coeur, and the most famous example the Dexter Mausoleum (1869). This memorial to Edmund Dexter dominates Geyser Lake. James Keys Wilson used Sainte Chapelle in Paris as his inspiration. Spring Grove Cemetery was placed on the list of National Historic Landmarks in 1979. |
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