BEND — Bend’s pioneers, merchants and celebrities are among those buried in Greenwood Cemetery, a nearly century-old burial ground in the shadow of Pilot Butte.

More than 5,000 people are said to rest there, according to the online catalogue Find a Grave. The man who drew the boundary lines for the city’s properties is there, Bend’s first undertaker and his family, too, and dozens of military veterans.

But a zoning change is being considered for the privately owned Greenwood Cemetery.

It currently sits in a public facilities zone, which is frequently used for public parks, schools and other public buildings — not cemeteries. Greenwood Cemetery’s owner wants to change the zone to residential. More specifically, medium-density residential, which is typically for multi-unit housing developments, per the city of Bend’s development code.

The landowner, Oregon Care Group LLC, began to clear trees from the property Wednesday, which prompted the city to order a halt to work on the site, said city spokesperson René Mitchell.

“The owner, Oregon Care Group, did not have approval from The City to cut the trees,” she wrote in a text message.

Mitchell said the order to halt work was prompted by a complaint the city received Thursday that the landowner was in violation of the city’s tree preservation code, which recently underwent an intensive revision process. The city’s current tree code bars tree clearing or grading on undeveloped properties without specific approval.

However, lawyers for the landowner have been emphatic: No current plans exist to develop the vacant part of the cemetery, Adam Smith with Portland-based firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt told The Bulletin Dec. 11.

“There may be future development of the vacant part of the parcel, but there are no plans for development at this time,” said Smith, who represents Oregon Care Group, at a Dec. 14 meeting with Greenwood Cemetery’s neighbors.

The Greenwood Cemetery sits adjacent to the publicly owned Pilot Butte Cemetery off U.S. Highway 20, but it is also surrounded by houses in the Larkspur and Orchard District neighborhoods.

Lawyers, engineers and a consultant met with Greenwood Cemetery’s neighbors to hear their input, which is required through the city’s pre-application process. Many neighbors expressed concern with what a change to the land might mean. Some said it would only be a matter of time before the vacant part of the cemetery is developed because of scarce developable land in Bend.

Smith told The Bulletin before the meeting that the purpose of the zone change is to comply with the rules of the public facilities zone, which doesn’t allow cemeteries outright.

“This is a clean-up exercise so anything that may or may not happen in the future can be fully explored,” he said at the time.

Oregon Care Group also owns Deschutes Memorial Gardens and the Tumalo Pioneer Cemetery. The company’s president, Kevin Precht, owns and directs multiple funeral homes in Oregon and Washington, including the Niswonger-Reynolds Funeral Home and Crematory in Bend.

Oregon Care Group bought the cemetery in 2020 for $5.5 million as a part of a multi-property deal, according to Deschutes County property records. Before that, it had been owned by the Daniel family since 2004.

Half of the cemetery is vacant, home to only grass and trees.

The other half is home to the very fabric of Bend’s history. The first burial was in 1924, which means the cemetery is just two months away from turning 100, said Vanessa Ivey, the manager of the Deschutes Historical Museum.

It was the burial of Edgar M. Thompson, a furniture store owner who arrived in Bend in 1910 to set up shop in what is now downtown, Ivey said.

“Years after his death, in 1940, his wife Myrtle sold the property and the Tower Theatre was built upon it,” Ivey wrote in an email.

Thompson also supplied furniture for one of Bend’s earliest entrepreneurs Hugh O’Kane, who built the Bend Hotel. Thompson also owned properties that were precursors to many of today’s downtown businesses, including the Pine Tavern, Ivey said.

More Coverage

Tot Pringle buried in the right place

Levi Weist, who platted out the town of Bend in 1904, is buried in the cemetery. So is Charles P. Niswonger, the original owner of the cemetery and Bend’s first certified undertaker, with his family, Ivey said. Niswonger and an associate purchased the Greenwood Cemetery after the nearby Pilot Butte Cemetery ran out of room.