Osborne Online

Bland Cemetery is an intriguing little cemetery in Bentonville. I stay in a hotel not far away from this cemetery whenever I'm in town, so I decided to walk off my cheese fries after dinner one night and take a visit.

This is mostly a family cemetery with a lot of old graves of the Bland family. I found it interesting how there's quite a few modern graves as well and they are literally intertwined with the old ones. I took some pictures and will try to get them posted in the next few days.

So here's the sad part... As I walked toward the back of the cemetery, I found a row of three markers, just simple stones in the ground marked "unknown". Then, as I continued walking further back, I found another row of four, then another... and another... I stopped counting when I hit thirty markers listed "unknown". I don't know why, but I find unknown markers soooo sad.

Update: According to the book "Cemeteries of Benton County, Arkansas, this cemetery was actually relocated in the early 1960s when a flood control dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers. A number of graves were unearthed with no markers or records and were thus given "Unknown" markers here.

GPS Coordinates
36° 20' 14" N
94° 11' 04" W