Notice the ground beneath you: seven historic cemeteries founded in 1884 that together form the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park. These burial grounds were founded in 1884 in what was known as "Block 32," and the park itself was officially renamed Pioneer and Military Memorial Park on February 1, 2007. This landscape is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Walk slowly and you will sense layers of history: there were cemeteries here and elsewhere as early as 1850, and the city once worried that an "old" cemetery between 5th and 7th Avenues and Jackson and Madison Streets, near a newly built train station, might look unpleasant to railroad passengers in the newly established railroad system. On these grounds sits the historic Smurthwaite House, also on the National Register, now serving as the cemetery’s main office. Pioneer and Military Memorial Park is the final resting place of various notable pioneers of Arizona, and each marker and plot speaks to those stories.
The Smurthwaite House, now the cemetery's main office, keeps watch over the markers and trees of Block 32 and the Arizona pioneers buried among them.