Westview Cemetery is something special. Found on the westside of Atlanta and with almost 600 acres of property it is the largest cemetery in the Southeast. There are over 108,000 bodies interred on property and there are still hundreds of acres that are untouched.
On a sunny but cold January afternoon I headed out into the cemetery to see who I could find. It didn’t take long to recognize some of the most famous names in Atlanta. Candler, Autrey, Hartsfield, Eubanks, Grady, Grant, Dorsy, and Barrett are just a few. The author of Uncle Remus. Journalists, mayors, musicians, entrepreneurs, politicians, civil rights activists and more are laid to rest on these grounds.
For me some of the most significant would be Asa Candler, owner of Coca-Cola, Robert Shaw, conductor of the Atlanta Symphony, Henry W. Grady, journalist and who the University of Georgia’s journalism school is named after (my alma mater), Joel Chandler Harris, another journalist and author of the Uncle Remus stories, and Ralph Emerson McGill, one of the south’s best known civil rights leaders.
Westview Cemetery opened in 1884 and holds over 100,000 bodies on the almost 600 acres it occupies. Some of Atlanta’s best known names are buried here.
Graves at Westview Cemetery.
Westview is the largest cemetery in the Southeast with over 100,000 people buried on the almost 600 acres it occupies.
Eubanks, Awtry, Candler and Hartsfield are just some of the famous names of people buried at Westview Cemetery.
Looking skyward at Westview Cemetery.
Over 108,000 people are buried at Westview Cemetery.
The gravestone for Charles Ashmore Conklin at Westview Cemetery.
One of the many thousands of graves at Westview Cemetery.
More graves dating to the late 1800s and early 1900s hold some of Atlanta’s best known names.
A familiar name around the city to be sure. Charles Howard Candler, son of Asa Candler, the founder of Coca-Cola.
The Crenshaw family tombstone depicts an angel touching the stone. A lot of Atlanta’s pioneering families are buried at Westview.
Crypts and tombstones dot the nearly 600 acres that make up Westview Cemetery.
The Westin and a few other skyscrapers can be seen above the graves at Westview Cemetery.
Westview Abbey, the cemetery’s mausoleum and chapel.
Some of the stained glass windows at Westview Abbey, the cemetery’s mausoleum and chapel.