Mount Pleasant Cemetery on rebound after years of neglect
Turn around for Sioux Falls internment grounds physical, financial undertaking
When the new board took over at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in central Sioux Falls on Oct. 18, it was evident members had their work cut out for them.
Tree branches had been down for years. Plots were overgrown with grass. Abandoned equipment festooned the grounds. The maintenance shops and office were littered with garbage and infested with mice and rats. Someone had been living in one of the buildings.
“It looked like a jungle,” board President Paul Westra told The Dakota Scout while holding before and after photos. “There was crap all over. We had an awful problem with vagrants and drugs.”
But those were just the obvious signs of distress.
