The main sign for the cemetery...

Photo December 2004, photo credit Loretta-Marie Dimond.

Volunteers grave groom under the direction of Eric Haas. John Moore was the first homesteader of Des Moines, Washington. His special marker was installed by the City of DesMoines Historical Association.

Marker added to the base of the flagpole, summer 2010.

Over 3,200 psychiatric patients from Western State Hospital were buried here from 1876 to 1953. Since then, burial has been elsewhere. The graves are marked with numbers for privacy reasons and the stigma of mental illness. These people worked on the award winning hospital farm and in other hospital areas and called the hospital "home". They were mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, children and many were veterans.

Burial Plot Map

What remains of the old hospital.

Western State Hospital Memorial Cemetery

November sunset