Tag: florence cemetery

Florence City Cemetery – YOU WON’T RUN OVER TOM CLARK!

Quite often, throughout history, individuals and groups of people are excluded from burial within certain cemeteries.

Yesterday, I posted a photo from Florence City Cemetery in Florence, Alabama.  Here is a photo from the same cemetery.  An outlaw from 1872 is buried near the center of Tennessee Street so the town’s folk can run over him every day.  It’s a great story.


This notorious outlaw gang leader who boasted that no one would ever run over Tom Clark lies buried near the center of Tennessee Street where now all who pass by do run over him.  In 1872 Clark, who terrorized helpless citizens during the Civil War, confessed to at least nineteen murders, including a child, and was hanged with two companions.  Although graves were already dug in a nearby field, outraged townspeople interred Clark beneath Tennessee Street thus bringing his boast to nought.

Quite often, throughout history, individuals and groups of people are excluded from burial within certain cemeteries. Do you know of other examples?

Florence Cemetery – Florence Alabama

Florence Cemetery in Florence Alabama is the final resting place of Alabama Governors, a city Mayor, and an author or two.

Florence Cemetery - Florence Alabama
Florence Cemetery – Florence Alabama

Florence Cemetery in Florence Alabama is the final resting place of Alabama Governors, a city Mayor, and an author or two. Immediately outside the cemetery walls, 6 feet under busy Tennessee Street lies a cantankerous outlaw who claimed “no one will ever run over me.” City residents saw to it his claims would prove to be false as thousands of people run over him every single day.

I visited Florence Cemetery on a warm April day.  Though a brisk breeze blew, a bright Alabama sun beat down upon me.  The sun burns me quickly at the beginning of the summer season and I was thankful for the copious numbers of trees which shade much of the older portions of the cemetery.  Scattered throughout the grounds are groves of tall standing Juniper trees.  Cemetery maintenance workers expertly prune lower branches away from tombstones and monuments making for isolated shady areas within which I enjoyed exploring tombstone engravings without the risk of an annoying April sunburn.

Florence Cemetery is on the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register as of March 2009.

Notable Tombstones & Monuments:

Florence Cemetery Mountain Tom Clark
Mountain Tom Clark

Trees in a cemetery
Shady grove of trees in Florence Cemetery

Emmet O'Neil - Alabama Governor
Emmet O’Neil – Alabama Governor 1911 – 1915

Crunk tombstone
Crunk tombstone.

Ovals in a cemetery plot.
Oval Grave Markers within a cemetery plot.

Nearby:  When visiting Florence Cemetery, be sure to “run” over Mountain Tom Clark’s gravesite on Tennessee Street, visit historic downtown Florence, and reflect on your visit with a Panini and iced tea at Rivertown Coffee, Inc. (as I’m doing right now).