Stearns History Museum Cemetery Tours Return for Halloween Season

(KNSI) – With Halloween around the corner, the Stearns History Museum is offering a chance to meet some of the area’s early residents, at their final resting places. The museum’s Sundown Cemetery Tour Series returns this month for its fifth year, with stops at three historic cemeteries across Stearns County.

Guides lead each tour at 5:00 p.m., stopping at 15 to 20 graves to share the stories of the people buried there. The walks take about an hour over moderate terrain, so organizers suggest comfortable shoes and a warm coat or sweater as the fall evenings cool off.

The first tour is Saturday, October 10th, at St. James Cemetery in Jacobs Prairie. St. James Parish was founded in 1856, making it the oldest incorporated parish in the Diocese of St. Cloud west of the Mississippi River.

The following Saturday, October 17th, the series heads to St. Benedict’s Monastic Cemetery in St. Joseph. The Benedictine sisters established the cemetery in 1884. It holds the remains of Mother Benedicta Riepp, considered the founder of Benedictine women’s communities in the United States. Riepp died in St. Cloud in 1862 and was reburied in St. Joseph when the cemetery opened.

The final tour is Saturday, October 24th, one week before Halloween, at Big Grove Church Cemetery near Brooten. The Big Grove Lutheran congregation dates to 1867.

Tickets are $10 per person, and museum members get in free. They’re available in advance on the museum’s events page or at the door for those who arrive early.

For tickets and more information, click here.

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