Historical Society Hosts February Lunchbox Lecture Lunchbox Lecture: Mysteries, Mischief, and Mayhem of Murray County 2021 Cemetery Tour – Slide Show Drive Through Comfort Food Fundraiser MCHS Annual Meeting Summer Raffle Fundraiser Winners Second Annual Cemetery Tour Calling all Tree Decorators – Holiday Open House Traveling Exhibit Makes a Stop at the MC Museum Small Grant Awarded for Collections Project 2021 Front Porch Music Series Frank Thayer: An Architect’s Story by Rose Moudry Baseball of Murray County by Bill Bolin Call for Project Bids Dinehart Lecture: Railroads of Murray County Lunchbox Lecture – Murray County in the 1920s PowerPoint Large Grant Awarded for Work on Dinehart Holt House Lunchbox Lecture – Draining the Great Oasis Lunchbox Lecture – Cemetery Tour Slide Show Self-Guided Cemetery Tour Covid-19 Self Interview Take Home History — Free Educational Packets for Children Murray County Historical Society Receives SMAC Grant for 2020 Dinehart Holt House Front Porch Music Series Murray County Historical Museum “Doing Our Bit” Murray County Historical Museum has another great year! Lunchbox Lecture – Nov. 14 Walt Benton and his Music Preservation Tips: LUNCHBOX LECTURES – SEASON SIX VOLUNTEERS NEEDED International Holiday Traditions 2019 Annual Meeting Glensheen: The Musical Mnopedia Story – Sweetman Catholic Colony 2018 Fundraiser A Tale of Twenty Typewriters: The Process of Deaccession Become A Member Dinehart Holt House Historic Structure Report Mnopedia Story – Chandler-Lake Wilson Tornado (1992) Mnopedia Story – Murray County Mnopedia Story – Minnesota’s First Female Sheriff – from Murray County Mnopedia Story – Murray County Fair Legacy grant helps Museum hire a writer for MNopedia Articles New in the Collection Legacy grant helps Museum Purchase a new Microfilm Reader Keeping the Collections: Deaccessioning Textile Inventory Project Waning Years of the 1891 Murray County Courthouse Brought to Light

Self-Guided Cemetery Tour

Every Stone Tells a Story: Cemetery Tour Features the Lives of Locals.


The Murray County Historical Society invites you to set aside time in your schedule to learn some of the unique stories found in the county’s cemeteries. From Friday October 2 through Monday October 12 a self-guided tour of gravestones in three of the county’s cemeteries will be available. The Bethany Lutheran (Shetek area), Slayton North, and St. Columba (Iona) Cemeteries will be featured. During the tour dates, interpretive graveside signs will be placed near selected stones that tells the life and times of the person buried there.

Each story at the selected gravesites offers interesting insights into the history of the county. On this tour you’ll learn about the Hardware Kings of the Pieck family and the stories of exceptional service from the March family. Meet one of the many Civil War soldiers buried in the county and read the tragic story of the Hegstad family and their young children plus many more. Some stones are ornate and others modest but the lives they lived were valuable and added to the story of our communities.

As you wander the grounds of these unique and historic places watch for bright interpretive signs and a balloon marking the gravesites.

What you will need:

  • A Map/Guidebook – You can pick up a hard copy at the Murray County Museum or download a digital copy here: Cemetery Tour Guidebook.
  • Transpiration – To get to each of the three cemeteries.
  • A Sense of Adventure! – Have fun exploring the cemeteries and learning more about Murray County through stories of past residents!

We would love to hear what you think about this type of program! Contact us with comments or questions at 507-836-6533 or museum@co.murray.mn.us.

2016 Murray County Historical Society