New plaques at Southside Cemetery cap off century of history

December 5, 2012 at 6:00 a.m. | Updated December 5, 2012 at 6:00 a.m.

Dean Asher/FULTON SUN photo
Councilman Steve Moore and Debo Funeral Home general manager John Pautz, right of the column, and other staff from Debo Funeral Home stand near one of the two plaques installed on columns at Southside Cemetery. Records are unclear on the origins of the cemetery, but graves there date back to at least the 1860s and at least five black Civil War veterans are buried there. — Dean Asher/FULTON SUN photo Councilman Steve Moore and Debo Funeral Home general manager John Pautz, right of the column, and other staff from Debo Funeral Home stand near one of the two plaques installed on columns at Southside Cemetery. Records are unclear on the origins of the cemetery, but graves there date back to at least the 1860s and at least five black Civil War veterans are buried there.

A small ceremony was held Tuesday at Southside Cemetery where Fulton City Councilman Steve Moore and Debo Funeral Home General Manager John Pautz welcomed the addition of two new granite plaques on columns marking the cemetery's entrance.

The plaques were the latest result of an ongoing project to repair and restore fixtures on the cemetery grounds, Moore said. It started by restoring and rebuilding the columns that had surrounded the cemetery, as well as updating them with electric lamps.

"(The columns) were crumbling before and we decided to fix it up," said Moore. "We decided against a fence because the maintenance department said that's hard to maintain, but we put the columns up around the entrance."

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