8 Unusual Graves, Including an Airport Runway

(Image: Google Maps)

This is a satellite image of an active runway at the main airport of Savannah, Georgia.  The tarmac is on top of what was once the property of Richard and Catherine Dotson, both of whom were born in 1797. They died in 1884 and 1877, respectively, and were buried at a family cemetery on their property.

That land remained in their family until World War II. The Army then took the land to expand the local airfield and paid for the family to relocate the cemetery. The family did so, but refused to move the graves of the founders of their clan.

So the Army paved over the graves and moved the gravestones to the top of the pavement, directly over the final resting spots of Richard and Catherine Dotson. I can’t find current information, but as of 2001, the runway was in common use at the now-civilian airport, where pilots sometimes ask “if they could use the runway with the graves, just so they could see them.”

This is one of 8 strange locations for graves rounded up by Atlas Obscura.


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