St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery is owned and operated by eighteen Catholic Parishes in the city of Evansville:  St. Benedict, Christ the King, Holy Rosary, Good Shepherd, Nativity, Holy Spirit, St. Joseph, St. Theresa, Holy Redeemer, St. Anthony, Holy Trinity, St. Mary, St. Boniface, Sacred Heart, St. Agnes, Corpus Christi, and Resurrection.  

     The cemetery has been in operation since 1841, just a few years after the first Catholic Parish, Our Lady of the Assumption, was established in 1837.  The original St. Joseph  Catholic Cemetery   was located northeast of the city  in an area that is now  bounded by Columbia, Michigan, and Garvin streets. This cemetery was used from 1841-1871.

       In 1871, a group was organized to lay the groundwork for a new Catholic Cemetery. The original board of directors consisted of representation from Assumption, Holy Trinity and St. Mary parishes.

       Two main sites were studied for relocating the old cemetery.    One was in the area of the present day Johnson Place on Lincoln Avenue and the other, which was eventually chosen, on Mesker Park Drive.  When this hundred and fifteen  acre plot of land was purchased in 1870, it was located on the far outskirts of the young city of Evansville.

        In 1872, the new grounds were ready for burials. It wasn’t until 1879 that all remaining bodies were removed from the old cemetery and reburied in the new cemetery.   To date, St. Joseph Cemetery is the final resting place for over 37,000 people.  

        The office building, small holding building, and the tool building were constructed in 1917. A garage and maintenance building was built in l963.  In 1965, the old small tool building was converted into a chapel to be used during funerals. The first mausoleum was built in 1976 with an addition in 1993.     In 2004, a new section was added which is part of a twenty year master plan consisting of seven more additions.  The display panels of these mausoleum additions feature an iconic rendition of each of the eighteen parishes in the city of Evansville.

           A conservative estimate gives St. Joseph Cemetery enough in ground burial sites for 250 more years. The 20-year mausoleum master plan will allow for more than 10,000 crypt spaces.

      Our Perpetual Care Fund, set aside exclusively for the care and maintenance of St. Joseph Cemetery’s land and buildings, will protect its beauty far into the future.