SNAPPED: The spirit of the season

Christmas wreaths and ribbons adorn the entrance of the Park City Cemetery. Photo: Michele Roepke

Welcoming holiday decorations are up at the Park City Cemetery.

The plaque reads, in part:

The first child born in Park City was also the first child to die in Park City. George and Rhoda Snyder, who are credited with christening the town Park City, operated a boarding house here when the area was just a mining camp. When their infant daughter Pearl succumbed during a heavy snowstorm, attempts to take her to Salt Lake City for burial were thwarted by snowdrifts. Thus she was buried on this property owned by the Snyders, who donated the 40-acre parcel to the City in 1879 to be used as a cemetery. Early tombstones indicate an unusually high number of young children’s graves, testifying to the ravaging effects of disease, severe winters, and hardships of life in early Park City.