Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation is the proud host of the City of the Dead Muskegon historical reenactment tour at Evergreen Cemetery. Located at the corner of Irwin Avenue and Wood Street, Evergreen Cemetery features burials of some of Muskegon’s most prominent residents as well as a potter’s field.

What Is City of the Dead?

This annual, family-friendly immersive theatre event features actors and organizers from our congregation and community portraying prominent (and not so prominent) figures from Muskegon’s history at their burial places. The City of the Dead tour aims to bring history to life, allowing attendees to meet those who built this city.

City of the Dead highlights Muskegon’s past, seeking to accurately portray former residents in an informative and respectful way through historical dress, researched scripts, and props. Period games, traditions, and music have been included in the tour when appropriate to the stories told. Evergreen Cemetery was laid out as a garden cemetery, as is its neighbor, Oakwood Cemetery. Garden cemeteries were laid out specifically for visitors and predated the city parks movement. Early visitors would have brought picnics and spent the day communing with nature amidst the beauty of the landscape. City of the Dead tour guides love to lead groups through the historical monuments and towering trees, many of which were planted in the cemetery’s first few years.

Event Details

• City of the Dead takes place the second weekend of October
• Tours run Saturday and Sunday
  • Saturday tours step off starting at 5:00pm. The final tour steps off at 8:00pm.
  • Sunday tours step off starting at 2:00pm. The final tour steps off at 4:00pm.
• Evergreen Cemetery, 391 Irwin Ave, Muskegon, MI 49442
• Tickets are available on-site the weekend of the tours and cost $5.00.

Where Can I Get Updates?

You can find us on Facebook and soon also on Instagram. Our previous promotional videos and tour recordings are available on YouTube.

Getting Involved

City of the Dead is dedicated to finding ways for all those who are interested to participate in this event, whether as cast or crew or as a part of our planning and prep team. Roles available to cast members include hosts who greet guests and entertain them as they wait for their tours to step off; tour guides who bring guests around the cemetery on the walking tour while sharing historical narrative; and tour stops, who stand at each featured grave site and deliver the biography of one of the people buried at the site. Cast roles range from setup and tear down during the event weekend to volunteering to help maintain or build our cast and props library, historical research, or assisting in script writing. The planning team would also love to find a rehearsal director with theatre experience to work alongside our creative director to assist with cast management and rehearsals. Event organizers can be reached at CityOfTheDeadMuskegon@gmail.com.

City of the Dead’s History

The event began in 2010 when the church was looking for a fun way to raise money to support the Religious Education program. The exploration of history and understanding those who have lived in the past is directly related to helping youth learn about the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Learning about history helps foster empathy for others, as well as to understand the arc of history and how it can be moved toward equity. From everyday people to the heroes in our communities, immersive study of history inspires all ages in their search for truth and meaning, their work towards a more just world, and builds the concept of a world community. All these lessons can be tied back to the 7 Principles held by Unitarian Universalists.

The Director of Religious Education at the time, Janet Perreault, and Social Action Committee lead Gwen Williams founded this event as a small tour run by youth to tell the stories of those who were foundational to Muskegon’s history.

The event has grown considerably since its inception, both in attendance and in the number of people in the cast and crew. It is popular among community residents and attracts guests from other communities who make the journey a yearly tradition. Now taking place over the course of two days, City of the Dead Muskegon brings close to seven hundred people to Evergreen Cemetery to learn the stories that make up our city’s history. Some cast members even portray their own family members, eager to have the chance to share how their ancestors shaped our community.

Evergreen Cemetery History

Evergreen Cemetery had its beginnings in 1862, only one year after Muskegon became a village. The cemetery in town, then located at the corner of 1st Street and Muskegon Avenue, was full to the point that the paths were being sectioned off for burial plots and residents living close to the cemetery were concerned about the quality of the water in their wells. The ten acres on Irwin Avenue were sold to the Village by Mayor Chauncey Davis. It was considered fallow farmland, so far removed from the village center that it was thought the boundaries of the municipality would never extend so far as this desolate plot of land. Plans were made to move the bodies interred in the Old Cemetery to what was initially known as New Cemetery, now Evergreen.

The Ladies Cemetery association was formed to make the newly-donated land a fit place to bury the beloved departed. They planted trees and flower beds, installed a fence around the outside of the property, and even had a well dug to allow for easier tending of their flower beds. Their work made the burial grounds so popular that the area they had initially sectioned off to be a park at the center of the cemetery had to be divided up as plots and sold to accommodate demand. This area of the cemetery now features many of the city’s most prominent historical families.

Each year, the Muskegon Chronicle published a report from the Ladies Cemetery Association that listed the work of their Association. In an article published May, 1899 titled “Cities of the Dead,” their work is lauded by the editor, even listing what new monuments were erected and how many individuals were buried in the potter’s field.