Forget Me Not: Great Falls Pet Cemetery

See an October 2024 update after the article

Image of a dog statue with broken ears and nose at the Great Falls Pet Cemetery. Photographer Judy Ellinghausen for Cascade County Historical Society, January 2021.

Up on Prospect Hill behind the Salvation Army building is a small, fenced plot of land. A lone worn-down sentry now watches over the final resting place of several hundred of Great Falls’ animal friends. The Great Falls Pet Cemetery opened in 1944 under the direction of then Mayor Ed L. Shields. Shields was the driving force behind the popularity of the story of “Shep” the faithful railyard dog who waited for his master to return to Fort Benton. His personal experiences and involvement with Shep drove him to establish the cemetery. It is located at the Northeastern corner of what was then Highland Park. It offered a final home for dogs, cats, birds and rabbits, and a special section was reserved for deceased member of the K-9 corps – dogs that served in WWII. The first dog buried there was Winky, a cocker spaniel that belonged to Capt. F. E. and Irene Calhoun. Though grave #1 was purchased by Mayor Shields for his own dog, the dog went off by himself and was never found and, therefore, was never used.

Headstone of Winky, a cocker spaniel, the first dog buried at the pet cemetery

Image from the Great Falls Tribune November 30, 1952 which shows the entrance gate and sign

The cemetery offered a valued service to the people of Great Falls, giving peace of mind and a beautiful place to visit their furry loved ones. In 1957, when the county was looking for an area to build the Cascade County Convalescent Hospital, part of Highland Park was suggested. When a council session revealed that the land suggested included the pet cemetery, the Electric City Kennel Club protested profusely, and the site was not disturbed.

In 1963, the Park Board noticed that the cemetery was two-thirds full and granted an additional acre to the original .88 acre. The following year, the Kennel Club again showed their devotion and donated a new metal fence to go up around the site. Several years before, Charles Brown presented the Parks Department with two dog statues which were mounted on concrete in the center of the grounds.

Image published in the Great Falls Tribune June 9, 1996 of the pet cemetery dog statue

In May of 1974, it was announced that once the final 100 plots were filled, the cemetery would be closed to new internments. High cost of maintenance was cited as the reason for not expanding. Despite offers to help cover costs, the cemetery was not expanded. It was at this same time that the Salvation Army family and youth center was waiting to be built.

Great Falls and Cascade County would not see another Pet Cemetery until Memory Gardens opened in 1989, just East of Great Falls. Though the city still maintains the grounds, it has seen much better days. The flowers and bushes are gone, and the grounds are pocked with gopher holes. Many markers are sunken and disappearing. Only one dog statue remains, badly damaged, to watch over the cemetery.

Great Falls Pet Cemetery with one dog statue and gopher holes. The Ivy Nursing Home is visible behind it. Photographer Judy Ellinghausen.

Below are stories reproduced from the Great Falls Tribune and images of grave markers taken January 2021 .

Dog Which Followed Master To Pacific War Dies Here

Joker, the black spaniel whose successful “needle in a haystack” search for his master during World War II was nationally publicized, is dead. The 14-year-old dog died Montana and will be buried in the pet cemetery here.

When Dr. and Mrs. Stanley C. Raye, 800 22nd St. S., and their two children moved here from Ronan in August 1952, Joker came, too.

Raye, a captain in the Army Dental Corps, left for the South Pacific, via Camp Stoneman, Pittsburgh, Calif., late in October 1944. Joker was not far behind.

By some miracle and probably with the help of understanding serviceman, the young dog stowed away on a Army transport less than two weeks later.

The transport was bound for the island, 7000 miles away, to which Raye had been sent, but Joker nearly didn’t complete the trip. Ordered put to death when discovered by the ship’s captain, the dog was saved by the plea of a major.

On Feb. 7, 1945, Raye, sitting in front of his tent on Biak, noticed a lieutenant walking with the dog on a leash, and was reunited with his pet. When Raye returned to the States, he had to smuggle Joker in a box resembling an Army footlocker, because of a rule against bring dogs from overseas.

Joker was a clumber spaniel, an English breed larger than a cocker spaniel.

-Great Falls Tribune, February 4, 1958

Below: Thirteen images of grave markers at the Great Falls Pet Cemetery taken January 2021. Many had to be uncovered by debris and earth to photograph. Photographer Judy Ellinghausen.

Names of the animals and their epitaphs vary, with most listing their owners names, from “Roger,” Branson Stevenson’s dog, “Fibber,” “In Memory of a Great Pal: ‘Jerry',’ to “Princess Ming Toy,” and “Metoo.”

Faithful G. N. Yards Pet Dies Under Backing Switch Engine

There is another fresh mound of earth in the pet cemetery. Soon there will be a headstone bearing the inscription, “He was loyal to railroad crews – Born 1927, died 1944.”

The stone will be paid for by coins thrown into a hat by yard, train and engine crews of the Great Northern yards here in final respect to their dog pal, Ding, a railroader with seven years’ rights, who failed to hear a backing switch engine. Mayor Ed Shields, himself a railroader, and Casper Gonser, park superintendent, had a coffin made. Ding’s grave is No. 50.

There were other times when his railroad friends passed the hat for him. Once on a night in 1942, Ding charged a suspicious figure lurking in the yards. A shot, the bullet striking Ding in the stomach, stopped his charge. The coins paid for an operation, and he recovered.

Ding came to Great Falls in 1937. Then 10 years old, he fell off a sheep train and was injured. The men cared for him, and he took to following the assistant yardmasters, called dingers by railroad men, and acquired the name of Ding.

-Great Falls Tribune, December 23, 1944.

Photograph: Zins family with caption: “Tige on boat with Dad, Mom, and Grandma.” Image courtesy Bill Zins.

Image of Tige’s grave marker at the Pet Cemetery.

Author: Megan Sanford, Archives Administrator

Update: October 2024, Courtesy of the Paris Gibson Month Celebration Committee

In January of 2023 the Paris Gibson Month Celebration Committee (PGMCC) met to prepare for their annual "Waking the Dead" event. During that January meeting it was suggested the committee broaden its focus and reintroduce Great Falls to the first pet cemetery founded in the state. The reasoning was twofold. First, since Paris Gibson was fond of dogs and he constantly had one of his dogs with him wherever he went, the committee thought it appropriate to recognize that fondness. Second, historically the "Great Falls Pet Cemetery" was the first such cemetery established in Montana in 1944. Its primary proponent was then Mayor Ed Shields. Shields was also a Great Northern Railway conductor and was instrumental in the promotion of the "Shep" story from Fort Benton, MT. A member of the PGMCC, Bill Zins, was chosen to take on the cemetery project. Zins is the grandnephew of Ed Shields. 

Zins spent numerous hours working with Great Falls Park & Rec to come up with ideas to put the cemetery in the public eye. The goal was to have the projects completed by 2024 as that is the 80th anniversary of the founding of the cemetery.

One project was to clear the overgrowth off the markers. A second project was to establish some sort of area for visitors to relax. A meeting was set up with a local Boy Scout, Tristen Short, to develop Tristen's Eagle Scout project. Tristen designed and constructed a small Pergola in an area of the cemetery that had no burials. A small sitting bench was designed and constructed by a local hobbyist, Pat Carroll. The bench sits in the Pergola. Finally, two signs were designed and installed with the help of the City Park & Rec, Pacific Steel & Recycling, and Waring's Metal works at the entrance to the cemetery. 

The PGMCC continues to work with the Great Falls Park & Rec to maintain the cemetery.

Images courtesy Bill Zins