Historic Woodlawn Cemetery and Arboretum, founded in 1876, has provided a final resting place for thousands of individuals. The story of the cemetery and arboretum provides an in-depth look at Toledo as it developed from a small port on the Great Lakes to a major manufacturing center during the first 50 years of the cemetery's existence. Images of America: Toledo's Woodlawn Cemetery presents the heavy hitters whose success in life allowed them to construct the most elaborate mausoleums and monuments reflecting turn-of-the-century interest in Egyptian art and Greek architecture. Others resting at the cemetery stumbled upon fame, including the humble railroad ticket agent who was honored in death with a colossal 30-foot pyramid, perhaps the most celebrated of all the monuments in the cemetery. Placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, historic Woodlawn Cemetery traces the storied past of Toledo.
Rebecca Deck Visser and Renee Ciminillo Jayne, two of the cemetery's docents, amassed a large collection of images highlighting the cemetery's development from a simple farm field to the serene setting inspired by the rural cemetery movement. Visser and Jayne had the assistance of Fred Folger's ongoing research in their quest for the information included in this richly detailed portrait of Toledo's Woodlawn Cemetery.