Traditionally known as the Cuming City Cemetery, this eleven-acre tract of land was set aside in 1976 primarily as a preserve for native vegetation. Never plowed, this prairie looks much like it did to the Indians and to the first white men who settled Nebraska in the 1850's. Grasses such as big and little bluestem, Indian Grass, and side-oats grama still grow here. Now owned by the Dana College, the site was acquired with the assistance of The Nature Conservancy and the Cuming City Cemetery Association.
Part of this plot is reserved as a burial ground for the descendants of Lewis M. Kline, pioneer newspaperman who helped found Cuming City in 1855. By 1857 the town boasted 53 homes, 3 stores, and 3 hotels. It disappeared in the 1870's, when most of its citizens moved to Blair on the new railroad. The main north-south street of the old town site of Cuming City is now U.S. Highway 73, 1 1/4 miles southeast of here. The Kline family, which had its first burial here in 1857, donated the acreage to Cuming City for a cemetery. Many of those buried here were later removed to the Blair Cemetery, where maintenance is provided.
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