Prospect Cemetery, Brackenridge, Allegheny County, PA

Established in 1863 and incorporated in 1864, Prospect Cemetery was formed as the first public cemetery in the area. Encompassing 13 acres, it lies on a hill surrounded by homes on all side streets. During the early years graves were relocated from local church and family cemeteries to family lots in Prospect Cemetery, and stones as old as 1817 can be found in the cemetery.

More than 13,000 graves are now in Prospect Cemetery, although nearly half of them have no grave stone to mark someone's last resting place. Some of the original records were lost in the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936, when the office, located on lower ground in Tarentum, flooded (not the cemetery itself), but the original interment book that is rife with misspellings, but contains every burial, was spared.

Prospect Cemetery is located in Brackenridge, just a few blocks beyond the Tarentum/Brackenridge dividing line. Brackenridge Borough was not formed until 1901. In older obituaries, even after Brackenridge was established, Prospect Cemetery is sometimes referred to as the "Tarentum burying ground" because bodies and mourners coming from out of town would disembark the train at the Tarentum depot. There is no cemetery located in Tarentum. Today several cemeteries have Tarentum mailing addresses, but are located in outlying townships.