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Cook County Indigent Burial Program Fact Sheet
From 1854-1971, Cook County operated, maintained and administered its own public
cemetery for indigent, unclaimed and unknown burials.
Cook County Cemetery at Dunning was used for such burials from 1854-1911 (There are
approximately 38,000 individuals buried there including victims of the Chicago Fire and
Civil War veterans.)
From 1911-1971 the county began burying the Indigent, Unclaimed, and Unknown in a
county owned parcel of land adjacent to the Oak Forest Hospital of Cook County. (The
cemetery is called the Cook County Cemetery for the Indigent and approximately 90,740
individuals were buried there.)
In 1971, the county decided to cease conducting the burials in-house and on county
owned land, and chose to contract with a private cemetery. This ended a 117 year
precedent of the county completing the burials. The first cemetery was Archer Woods in
Willow Springs, IL (now known as Mount Glenwood West). Approximately 2,448
individuals were buried there.
Cook County still owns several cemeteries including the above mentioned Cook County
Cemetery for the Indigent near Oak Forest Hospital, Bachelors Grove Cemetery,
Glenview Cemetery and Mt. Forest Cemetery, none of which are in use today.
In 1980, the contract was transferred to Homewood Memorial Gardens Cemetery, which
still holds it today. Over 13,000 thousand individuals were buried there.
Recent events as well as investigations by the Cook County Sheriff have revealed, the
disturbing manner by which the Cook County’s indigent, unclaimed and unknown
individuals have been buried including bodies being stacked as much as eight high in a
man-made hill at the back of the cemetery, people placed in coffins with unidentified
limbs, medical waste and non-human debris, and coffins buried haphazardly in a trench
where other bodies are stacked.
The stacking and lack of markers makes it near impossible for family members to
accurately locate their loved one’s graves. In addition, this burial practice hampers the
ability of law enforcement to identify and locate Unidentified Deceased Persons.
The discovery of the above mentioned tragedy lead to the introduction and passage of an
ordinance on May 4, 2011 setting new standards and safeguards for the manner in which
burials of the indigent, unclaimed and unknown are handled in Cook County.
The reestablishment of a permanent Cook County Cemetery would not only ensure that
our indigent are put to rest in a respectful manner, but it would also facilitate proper
documentation for law enforcement purposes, proper maintenance, as well as save the
County millions of dollars.
The use of approximately 5 acres of land contiguous to the location of the former Cook
County Cemetery for the Indigent, could establish a cemetery capable of meeting the
needs of the County for the next 100 years.
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