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New fence completed for Grayhorse Cemetery

A new fence has been completed for the Grayhorse Cemetery. CODY HAMMER/Osage News

A new fence for the Grayhorse Cemetery is now complete. The cemetery will stay open during the day for those individuals paying their respects to their loved ones interred in the cemetery, but the new gate will be locked at sundown and tourists are not welcome.

Efforts have been ongoing to safeguard the cemetery from tourists and community members who are interested in seeing the graves of Osage Reign of Terror victims.

Chuck Tillman, acting president of the Grayhorse Village Board, said the gate is timed and will open every day at 7 a.m. and lock at sundown.

Congressional legislation

Legislation sponsored by Tillman’s younger brother, Congressman Joe Tillman, appropriated $250,000 for the project. The ON Foundation also gave a grant of $2,500.

Discussion took place about the project on April 14 during a Congressional Culture Committee meeting. The late George Pease III, who passed away in November of this year after a fight with cancer, was the then-president of the Grayhorse Village Board and oversaw the project. He said at the time, the new gate was a proactive move to protect the cemetery from fans of the upcoming Martin Scorsese-directed film, “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Pease said the village board previously cleared the area and conducted ground-penetrating radar to identify unmarked graves. This helped to mark the boundaries of the cemetery while expanding it to the north and west. Recent efforts made it more driver-friendly for larger vehicles and trucks maneuvering the narrow roads.

Congresswoman Jodie Revard said the cemetery is already the interest of many tourists. She took an Osage County tour of the area and on the tour, someone wanted to travel to Fairfax to “see where the house blew up and if there were any bone shards.”

“I know this is a thing, and people are weird and are showing interest … and curiosity about this movie and it’s going to be out of our control,” Revard said. “What we can control is who accesses the cemetery.”

The cemetery sits on 3.02 acres of Osage Nation Reservation land, donated around the time of 1906 by Wilson Kirk, an Osage original allottee from the Grayhorse District.

The Grayhorse Cemetery is a private cemetery, and the Osage Nation Police Department regularly patrols. If you or anyone you know sees irregular activity at the cemetery or in the Grayhorse Indian Village, please call the ONPD at (918) 287-5510.

 


By

Shannon Shaw Duty

Original Publish Date: 2022-01-06 00:00:00

Author

  • Shannon Shaw Duty

    Title: Editor

    Email: sshaw@osagenation-nsn.gov

    Twitter: @dutyshaw

    Topic Expertise: Columnist, Culture, Community

    Languages spoken: English, Osage (intermediate), Spanish (beginner)

    Shannon Shaw Duty, Osage from the Grayhorse District, is the editor of the award-winning Osage News, the official independent media of the Osage Nation. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Legal Studies with an emphasis in Indigenous Peoples Law. She currently sits on the LION Publishers board of directors, the Freedom of Information Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists, and she is also a member of the Pawhuska Public Schools Board of Education. She served on the Board of Directors for the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) from 2013-2016 and served as a board member and Chairwoman for the Pawhuska Johnson O’Malley Parent Committee from 2017-2020. She is a Chips Quinn Scholar, a former instructor for the Freedom Forum’s Native American Journalism Career Conference and the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. She is a former reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican. She is a 2012 recipient of the Native American 40 Under 40 from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2014 she helped lead the Osage News to receive the Elias Boudinot Free Press Award. The Osage News has won Best Newspaper from the SPJ-Oklahoma Chapter in their division the past five years, 2018-2022. Her award-winning work has been published in Indian Country Today, The Washington Post, the Center for Public Integrity, NPR, the Associated Press, Tulsa World and others. She currently resides in Pawhuska, Okla., with her husband and together they share six children, two dogs and two cats.

Avatar photo
Shannon Shaw Dutyhttps://osagenews.org

Title: Editor

Email: sshaw@osagenation-nsn.gov

Twitter: @dutyshaw

Topic Expertise: Columnist, Culture, Community

Languages spoken: English, Osage (intermediate), Spanish (beginner)

Shannon Shaw Duty, Osage from the Grayhorse District, is the editor of the award-winning Osage News, the official independent media of the Osage Nation. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Legal Studies with an emphasis in Indigenous Peoples Law. She currently sits on the LION Publishers board of directors, the Freedom of Information Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists, and she is also a member of the Pawhuska Public Schools Board of Education. She served on the Board of Directors for the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) from 2013-2016 and served as a board member and Chairwoman for the Pawhuska Johnson O’Malley Parent Committee from 2017-2020. She is a Chips Quinn Scholar, a former instructor for the Freedom Forum’s Native American Journalism Career Conference and the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. She is a former reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican. She is a 2012 recipient of the Native American 40 Under 40 from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2014 she helped lead the Osage News to receive the Elias Boudinot Free Press Award. The Osage News has won Best Newspaper from the SPJ-Oklahoma Chapter in their division the past five years, 2018-2022. Her award-winning work has been published in Indian Country Today, The Washington Post, the Center for Public Integrity, NPR, the Associated Press, Tulsa World and others. She currently resides in Pawhuska, Okla., with her husband and together they share six children, two dogs and two cats.
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