City reburies bones at abandoned cemetery

You've probably heard the stories about a Houston hospital that was built on top of an old cemetery — but you might not know the stories were actually true, and that a fire department facility also stands on top of the dead folks. The site is off Elder Street just northwest of downtown; Jeff Davis Hospital was built there in 1924 over the City Cemetery, which was used between 1840 and around 1900. In the 1960s, HFD built an office/training complex next door to the old hospital. The old cemetery last came up — no pun intended — in 1986, when workers were digging a utility trench at the fire department property and unearthed the remains of 27 people.

For the last 20 years, those remains have sat in a lab at the University of Houston, but now they're finally being reburied fairly close to where they came from. It wasn't just a matter of digging a hole and putting the bones in: The team of city workers and scientists in charge of the reburial didn't want tp upset any more graves, so they worked to find an unoccupied 12-by-24-inch spot about 15 feet from the graves' original location. We wouldn't have thought you could fit the bones of 27 bodies in a 1-by-2-foot spot, but then again, we've never tried it.

After the bones were unearthed in 1986, they were taken to UH for study, but they eventually slipped everyone's mind and ended up collecting dust for 20 years. City Councilwoman Ada Edwards heard about the remains and urged the city to rebury them, and she said she's happy with the way things have turned out: "I can say to the spirit of the people's bones they represent, I'm glad we're able to give them a resting place with some dignity." In a tiny hole in the middle of a fire department complex.