More than 3,600 unmarked graves rediscovered on property in Alabama, mayor says

MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — Contractors in Alabama discovered thousands of unmarked graves that an archeologist believes date back to the mid-1800s.

The graves were uncovered in Mobile last January when the city broke ground on a new fire training facility.

We realized that we had a challenge or a problem, and so we started delving into the records," said Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson.

As it turns out, the group "Congregation of the Gates of Heaven and the Society of the Friends of the Needy" gave 50 acres to the city to be used as burial groundsin 1877.

But in the 1960s and 70s, the city built an animal shelter and training facilities on the land.

We again looked into it and found out that there has actually been a radar survey of that property back in the late 90s, and that was unbeknownst to us at the time. We realized that the spread of these graves, there's probably 3,000 graves in all," said Stimpson.

The full radar study revealed 3,689 people were buried there. It's unclear who they are, why the facilities were built there in the first place, or why they weren't the facilities were relocated when the unmarked graves were identified more than 20 years ago in the study.

Stimpson said the Mobile Police Department training facility, the MPD Mounted Unit facility, a Facilities Maintenance building, the City Animal Shelter and a training center used by the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department will all be relocated.

We realize that at least in good conscience, we didn't think that we could continue, certainly couldn't build a new building knowing what we knew. And then when we found out there was other graves, we said, you know, what we need to ultimately do is get all these facilities out of there and mark this area so they'll never be anything built there. It will be memorialized as a historic graveyard," said Stimpson.

WPMI reached out to former Mayor Mike Dow, who was mayor when the radar study was done, to ask why the city didn't relocate the buildings then, but have not heard backas of this publication.