Baldcypress Grove

In 1844, members of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society formed a cemetery association hoping to address the crowded and sometimes unkempt appearance of the city’s many small church cemeteries.A year later, Spring Grove Cemetery was established as a non-profit, non-denominational cemetery that would later become the final resting place of over 1,000 Civil War soldiers and many of Cincinnati’s most notable families including the Taft, Kroger, and Procter families. Spring Grove’s Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) Grove, which dates to the 1880s, has quietly witnessed the evolution of the grounds and the surrounding city. The trees have survived storms and time. Today, the Baldcypress Grove remains a legacy at Spring Grove, as it towers over the cemetery’s Civil War graves. Visitors are drawn to the trees by the unique shape of their base, and by the rhythmic collection of “knees” which edge Cypress Lake, adding the reverence of nature to this sacred place.