Ute Cemetery, known as Evergreen Cemetery in the 19th century, is located on Ute Avenue in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a small, overgrown parcel with approximately 200 burials. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.The cemetery was established early in Aspen's history, when a visiting prospector died upon arrival from Texas. There were no formal burial grounds in the new settlement, not even yet incorporated as a city, and the land later used for the current cemetery was used for this first death in the new community. Later, even as two more formal cemeteries were established elsewhere in the city, it continued to be the burial ground for the city's poorer citizens, including some Civil War veterans, until the Great Depression in the 1930s.After its last burials it fell unmaintained and overgrown, even as skiing and other resort industries revived Aspen's economy in the late 20th century. Trees grew amid many graves. A renovation in the early 21st century, following the listing on the Register, took account of the total graves and restored the many footpaths through the cemetery, popular with local hikers and mountain bikers, but left the wooded nature of the cemetery undisturbed. It is one of the few historic cemeteries in Colorado to have been completely restored.GroundsThe cemetery occupies an irregularly hexagonal 4.7acre parcel on the north side of Ute Avenue just east of Ute Place in southeastern Aspen. A paved bike path runs between it and Ute. To the east, where the bike path turns to divide the two, is the city's small Ute Park. The Roaring Fork River is to the northeast and the residences of Ute Place to the northwest. Across Ute Avenue to the south are more residences.
