BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 23, 2023
In Bangor, Mount Hope Cemetery is at the top of the list for must-see attractions. While hundreds of people will visit the 264-acre cemetery over the next week to lay remembrances at the graves of loved ones, it’s also a much beloved place for walking, running and biking, full of monuments both big and small that pay tribute to important periods in Bangor and U.S. history. It was modeled after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, the first-ever “garden cemetery” in the United States Mount Hope’s founding coincided with the rise of the public park movement in the United States, which in the mid-1800s was epitomized by Central Park in Manhattan. Nearly two centuries after it was founded, Mount Hope has continued to serve its dual purpose as a place for both the living and the dead — to honor the memory of those who have left us, while celebrating the beauty of the natural world all around us.