National preservation company visits Bowling Green to help restore Pioneer Cemetery

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Pioneer Cemetery in Bowling Green received a little tender loving care Thursday.

The Landmark Association and the City of Bowling Green invited Atlas Preservation to demonstrate tombstone cleaning and restoration. The company is in the middle of a forty eight state tour in order to teach locals to care for graveyards with headstones of marble, granite and limestone, which can be centuries old.

Being subjected to years of weather, biological growth and even destructive human activities, these pieces of history are sometimes in bad shape.

“So many cemeteries have been removed, have been diminished and reduced in size even from urban development and expansion. So the ones we have left that are older, like this site here in bowling green, it’s important for us to try to protect what’s left and preserve it as best we can,” said Jonathan Appell, owner of Atlas Preservation.

Atlas Preservation also restored one tombstone that had been broken into pieces.

Dozens of people attended the event, some coming from out-of-state.

Atlas continues its tour and will even demonstrate the art of hand-carving headstones during its next stop in Indiana.