The past is present at Boot Hill

An historic part of Sidney’s past is being resurrected.

The Boot Hill Restoration Committee is a group of volunteers dedicated to the restoration, recognition and preservation of the Boot Hill Cemetery, also known as the “Original Sidney Cemetery.”

Since 2006, the committee has not only been concerned in preserving the cemetery, but also with raising awareness of the role that Sidney played in the settlement of the Western Frontier.

Sidney’s Boot Hill Cemetery was an active burial place between the years of 1868 and 1894. After the last burials, the cemetery was considered “abandoned.”

Kathy Wilson, Boot Hill Restoration Committee chairperson, estimates that there could be another 700 bodies buried at the Boot Hill location. Wilson says that the committee has used ground penetrating radar to bolster that theory.

In June and July of 1922, a coroner from Julesburg, Colorado was at Boot Hill observing the exhumation process of 211 bodies. He later wrote an account of the findings from those days that described the bodies that were removed and their various conditions.

An average of 1,500 people traveled through town each week during the gold rush. There may be no records on how many of these people died while they were in Sidney or how many of these people were buried at Boot Hill. According to Wilson, the original borders of Boot Hill extended past the parking lot beside the cemetery and across the road near the train tracks and possibly onto the hill toward the water tower, as well.

The Boot Hill Restoration Committee has purchased land from Union Pacific and plans to expand the preservation area across the road to that area, Wilson said. Ghosts of Fort Sidney tours have been successful when held in the past, with more than 200 people annually taking the tour.

The Boot Hill committee is funded by the City of Sidney.

For more information about Boot Hill and its Restoration Committee visit http://www.sidneyboothill.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/SidneyBootHillCemetery?ref=ts&fref=ts.