First Patients' Cemetery (1895-1922)

ID: 2413 ~ Source: Image Courtesy of the National Hansen's Disease Museum, Permanent Collection. Carville, LA.

This file appears in: Carville Patients' Cemetery, National Leprosarium.

In 1922, shortly after the federal government took over the hospital, the first patients' cemetery was closed.

A monument with engraved names replaced individual markers, and a ceremony was held by patients and staff to commemorate those first 137 patients buried on-site.

This file appears in: Carville Patients' Cemetery, National Leprosarium.

Carville Patients' Cemetery, National Leprosarium.

By Elizabeth Schexnyder, Curator, National Hansen's Disease Museum, Carville, LA

The Carville cemetery is the only stop on the tour where you may exit your vehicle and take photographs. Just beyond the cemetery is a hospital incinerator with a driving ramp and tower built in…