Cedar Grove Cemetery offers tours on home game weekends

It’s probably the part of Notre Dame’s campus with the most history.

Cedar Grove Cemetery is the resting place of multiple university heroes.

Before game day visitors hit the stadium.

From the chapel to the mausoleums, the cemetery is the biggest on campus.

Tours are also offered on home game weekends.

“We do offer tours .there’s self-guided tours, or if someone asks questions or is looking for a family member, we’re available to help out,” sexton Leon Glon said.

Glon says visitors are often surprised find the land alive with stories of a rich and colorful past.

The cemetery opened in about 1844.

“Local history-wise there are quite a few people of interest here; Pierre Navarre. Alex Coquillard,” Glon said.

Along with the founders of South Bend, several other locals were buried there, until the university took official ownership in the 1970s.

“It was set aside as 16 original acres. The cemetery is now 22 acres,” Glon said.

The mausoleums hold alumni from all over the world, leaders and scholars who still consider campus home.

“It just seems natural to come back here because after they’ve graduated they moved all around the country and they really have no place to call home, but they always come back to Notre Dame,” Glon said.