Day 50: Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery, Rocky Ford, Colorado

📌APIA Every Day 50 - The Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery, located in Rocky Ford, Colorado, is a 30-acre municipal cemetery that has served the Otero County community since 1887. The cemetery is divided into two sections with distinct designs: the Valley View, organized in a strict grid of rectangular blocks typical of 19th-century town cemeteries, and the Hillcrest, added in 1923 with a plan of three overlapping ovals reflecting the influence of the Lawn Park cemetery movement. The grounds are landscaped with mature ash, elm, locust, and blue spruce trees, and are well known for peonies that bloom in abundance each spring.

Japanese immigrants first came to Rocky Ford in 1902, recruited to farm sugar beets following the completion of the American Crystal Sugar Factory. Within a year, local landowners were renting them as much land as they wanted, and by 1915 many Issei had established large farming operations. Block 21 of the Valley View holds the largest concentration of Japanese and Japanese American graves in the cemetery, with headstones inscribed in Kanji attesting to the community's commitment to preserving their heritage. In the 1950s, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) purchased plots in Block 21 so that community members could be buried near one another. A notable stand of roses grows among the Japanese headstones there, similar in variety to wild roses found along the Arkansas River, though research has not confirmed a direct connection to the roses transplanted by Japanese American incarcerees at the nearby Amache (Granada Relocation Center) National Historic Site. In 1978, the JACL planted twenty trees at the cemetery in honor of Issei men and women still living at that time.

The Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024 at the local level of significance under Criteria A and C, with a period of significance from 1887 to 1974. It is recognized for its association with the exploration and settlement of Rocky Ford, the history of its Japanese American and Latino communities, and its landscape architecture. The cemetery remains an active burial ground, owned and maintained by the City of Rocky Ford.

LEARN MORE:

Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form

Valley View-Hillcrest Cemetery

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