Seeking Proper Maintenance, City of Bartow Plans to Take Old Cemetery by Eminent Domain

City Attorney Sean Parker said he’s seen the process used successfully in other cities and doesn’t anticipate problems here.

“I think it’s a doable thing to take the property,” he said.

The cemetery, at State Road 60 and Baker Avenue, dates to the 1800s and historically has been the burial ground for black residents in the community.

Commissioner Pat Huff said he discovered records showing the city owned the cemetery in the late 1800s, and it was deeded to a group of trustees not long after that. Those trustees failed to arrange for successors, leaving the cemetery without an owner as the trustees died.