Workers in Fayetteville's Public

Works Department take care of the Fayetteville City Cemetery just as if

it were their own. But it's not.

In fact, it doesn't belong

to anybody, except for the people who own each individual plot among the

1,400 or so at the site on Ga. Highway 54 next to the Fayette County Board

of Education headquarters.

Although city employees help

with some general upkeep, the city does not own the cemetery.

"They keep the grass down,"

said City Manager Joe Morton of the city work crew. "They don't do

anything on the plots themselves. They just mow around them."

That's really all the city

can do. An elderly man in another city contacted Fayetteville officials

about possibly making arrangements for the city to maintain his family's

plots after his death, and he proposed paying the city for that service.

His letter has been forwarded to the City Council, but Morton said there's

a good chance that such an arrangement would not be legal.

This situation is not entirely

unique. Brooks, Tyrone and Woolsey also have city cemeteries, but those

are not owned by the municipalities themselves.

Approximately 9,000 gravesites

lie in the 129 cemeteries spread throughout Fayette County, according

to county historian Carolyn Cary. Some are privately owned, and others

are owned by various churches.

Some of the history of Fayette's

gravesites, four or five of which go