Grateful Dead

Most of the caskets are made of cedar. Very few casket lids were found. Some of the coffins are hinged, a sign of some income or status. Nearly all of the caskets found in the potter's field, behind the King's Daughters' section, had nails--definitely a sign of less income, Skinner says.

If you look closely and with Skinner's direction, you can make out the outlines of several tiny caskets. Many babies and young children are buried here. In the King's Daughters' area, the crew found a metal marker with the inscription "Our Little Darling."

Sandra and Bill Kincaid are with the La Tour group, at the front of the line and peering down into each trench. Cynthia Keheley, an Uptown neighborhood booster and wife of former assistant city manager Cliff Keheley, is there too, peppering Allums and Skinner with questions.

"And how do you know, are you absolutely sure, there are no bodies in those front two and a half acres?" Keheley asks.

"As sure as we can be, ma'am," Allums responds, and then describes the early maps he has at his office showing that commercial buildings once stood on the site.

"Maybe those people built on top of the dead, too," mutters one of the residents. Then she adds, a little louder this time: "Honestly, who are you supposed to believe?"

Since the December 13 cemetery tour, Skinner's crew has filled in the trenches. Columbus, which had already cleared out the trash and weeds, has committed to returning the grounds to reasonably neat condition. Pending the city's approval of a requested zoning change, Columbus will begin preparing its smaller site for development, Allums says. The cemetery gates are once again open to the public.

Meanwhile, the leftover 3.5 acres lie fallow, undisturbed--for now. The land remains decertified as cemetery space, and Marshall has said the Greenwood board will take no action to change it back. That sets the stage, of course, for some other developer, at some other time, to squeeze in. And the Greenwood preservationists fully expect a replay of the fall of 1996.

Frances James, along for the final cemetery tour, knows the drill. These folks may be dead and buried, but in Dallas, they aren't really safe.

Says James, smiling wryly: "I tell people all the time, if you're going to die in Dallas, you'd better get cremated. It's the only way to be sure you'll rest in peace.