Veterans cemetery in Hennepin County, Minnesota
Fort Snelling National Cemetery is a
United States National Cemetery located in the
Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory adjacent to the historic
fort and
Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport . It is the only National Cemetery in Minnesota. Administered by the
United States Department of Veterans Affairs , it covers 436.3 acres (176.6 ha), and as of August, 2023 had over 256,000 interments. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
History
Fort Snelling was a frontier fort first established in 1819. Its original purpose was to keep the peace on what was then the western frontier. During the
American Civil War it served as a recruiting camp area for
Minnesota volunteers. The cemetery was officially established in 1870.
In 1937, the citizens of
St. Paul , petitioned Congress to construct a National Cemetery in the area. Two years later, the new plot was dedicated, and the burials from the original post cemetery were moved to it. In 1960, the Fort Snelling Air Force Station transferred 146 acres (59 ha) to the cemetery; another 177 acres (0.72 km2 ) were acquired in 1961, expanding the cemetery to its current size.
There was a tradition of placing a flag on every grave on
Memorial Day , but as the cemetery grew, the staff was forced to stop. In 2017, the nonprofit Flags for Fort Snelling revived the tradition;
[1] volunteers placed 200,000 memorial flags in 2019.
[2]
Flag Posts at Fort Snelling National Cemetery
Medal of Honor Flag Post
Notable interments
Medal of Honor recipients
Second Lieutenant
Donald E. Rudolph Sr. , US Army,
Medal of Honor recipient for action in the
Battle of Luzon in
World War II
Captain
Richard E. Fleming , USMC, for action at
Midway in World War II (
cenotaph , body was not recovered)
Private First Class
Richard E. Kraus , USMC, for action at
Peleliu in World War II
Private First Class
James D. LaBelle , USMC, for action at the
Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II
Captain
Arlo Olson , US Army, for action in Italy during World War II
Staff Sergeant
Robert J. Pruden , US Army, for action in the
Vietnam War
First Lieutenant
Richard Keith Sorenson , USMC, for action on
Kwajalein during World War II
Captain
George H. Mallon , US Army, for actions in France during World War I
Machinist Mate First Class
Oscar F. Nelson , US Navy, for heroism aboard the USS Bennington during peacetime
Other
George John Weiss Jr Recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal and Founder of the Fort Snelling Memorial Rifle Squad
Johnny Blanchard , baseball player
Thomas Edward Burnett Jr ,
United Airlines Flight 93 passenger
Bob Casey , baseball announcer
Mark H. Gehan , Mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota state representative, and lawyer, World War I
Frank Eugene Hook , US Congressman, World War I veteran
Dr.
C. Walton Lillehei , pioneer of modern open-heart surgery
Corporal
Charles W. Lindberg , last surviving member of the Marines who flag raised the flag on
Iwo Jima during World War II
Ernest Lundeen , US Congressman
John Mariucci , hockey coach, member of the
United States Hockey Hall of Fame
Hal Scott , sports announcer
Bruce P. Smith , 1941 football player,
Heisman Trophy winner
David C. Sutherland III , game artist
[3]
Major
Tim Vakoc , US Army Chaplain mortally wounded in
Mosul during the
Iraq War
Private
Tracie McBride , rape and murder victim
[4]
John Clay Walker , American journalist, tortured and murdered in Mexico by members of the
Guadalajara Cartel
Jim Klobuchar , Minnesota journalist and author
The cemetery contains one British
Commonwealth war grave , of a
Royal Canadian Air Force airman of
World War II .
[5]
References
^
"Nonprofit seeks help placing flags at every Ft. Snelling grave on Memorial Day" . Fox KMSP . Archived from
the original on 2017-07-01. Retrieved 2017-05-23 .
^ Steiner, Katie (May 26, 2019).
"Fort Snelling Volunteers Place 200K Memorial Flags" .
WCCO . Retrieved November 12, 2019 .
^
"Dungeons and Dragons artist dies" .
CBC News . June 15, 2005. Archived from
the original on 2008-06-30. Retrieved March 2, 2010 .
^ "
To Private Tracie Joy McBride (Senate – March 08, 1995)
Archived February 10, 2020, at the
Wayback Machine ." U.S. Congressional Record,
Library of Congress . Retrieved on July 18, 2016.
^
[1] CWGC Casualty Record.
External links