North Lawn Cemetery on North 15th Street will now be owned and operated by the city of Fort Dodge.

The cemetery’s previous owners, Dennis and Kim Bridges, of Knoxville, Tennessee, reached an agreement to donate the 54-acre cemetery, its equipment and its trust funds to the city. The City Council voted unanimously Monday to accept the donation.

“We wanted to make sure it came into the right hands at the right time,” Kim Bridges said in a Monday evening phone interview.

Fort Dodge, she said, is a “good community with great people.”

The Bridges, who lived in Fort Dodge from 2003 to 2005, now own Bridges Funeral Home in Knoxville, nine cemeteries in Tennessee and cemeteries in other states. Kim Bridges said they were looking to downsize their holdings.

“The city isn’t burdened by this,” Assistant City Manager Ryan Maehl said.

He noted that the city already owns Oakland Cemetery on North 15th Street and Memorial Park Cemetery on Fifth Avenue South. Adding a third cemetery, he said, creates an economy of scale that will make it easier to manage all three.

In Iowa, cemeteries that aren’t managed by private owners become the responsibility of local governments. In 2020,the city of Fort Dodge became the owner of Memorial Park Cemetery when its owner essentially abandoned it.

Maehl said by accepting the donation of North Lawn Cemetery, the city is getting a site that is in good physical and financial condition. He said not accepting the donation would create the risk of eventually having to take over the cemetery when it might be in bad shape physically and financially.

“This is way better than getting it through receivership,” he said.

Receivership is the legal process that resulted in the city getting Memorial Park Cemetery.

He said the Bridges approached the city about 18 months ago. Discussions proceeded since then.

Those discussions and research revealed that there are actually four cemeteries at the place most people consider North Lawn. The graves closest to North 15th Street were actually three small cemeteries that were legally separate from North Lawn. Those cemeteries – St. Paul, German Lutheran and Hoveland – were cared for by the owners of North Lawn under a 1949 agreement.

Maehl said those small cemeteries will become part of North Lawn under city ownership.