It may not be the best known spot in Bowling Green, but it’s fair to say there is no place in town that holds more history per square foot than Pioneer Cemetery.

On ground that was once on the outskirts of the city, the cemetery now sits in the middle of downtown Bowling Green, across the street from the modern Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center and surrounded by the hustle and bustle of city streets.

Buried at Pioneer Cemetery are many people significant to our history – from the earliest white settlers in the region, noteworthy merchants, Revolutionary War veterans and even the often forgotten enslaved individuals who helped build the city.

Despite the significance and location of Pioneer Cemetery, it is often out of mind, even if it is not out of sight.

That’s why we are heartened to see the cemetery be the focus of a cleanup and preservation effort last week.

Guided by an expert from a national cemetery preservation company, a group of volunteers from the Landmark Trust and others cleaned graves and reset toppled markers in the historic cemetery Thursday.

Over the decades, many of the tombstones and graves in the cemetery have fallen into serious disrepair.

Fixing and preserving them is a specialty that few have. One of the experts in the field, Jonathan Appell, was on hand Thursday guiding the effort.

Appell is the CEO of Atlas Preservation, a company that has organized many preservation projects across the United States in recent years.

“Every site is different and has unique problems,” Appell told the Daily News at the cemetery. 

It was good to see such an effort to preserve and protect this vital part of Bowling Green history.

We hope that such work will continue to make Pioneer Cemetery a model for historic preservation in the city.