Memorial Mound is an abandoned, arranged burial and body preservation facility constructed in the 1960s by a local resident of Bessemer, Alabama. It is currently decaying after years of abandonment.

Rome in Alabama

After seeing a childhood trauma when he and his father retrieved the bones of a person on their property, Clyde Booth believed he could devise a better burial procedure. As a hobby, he began researching burial mounds and the catacombs of Rome in 1969, and he was amazed that both were still standing today. Booth set out at the age of 67 to establish his dream in Alabama, a place he believed people would visit for decades to come. Booth bought a 16-acre site near Bessemer, Alabama, in 1990.

His concept of an earth-covered mound was similar to a subterranean counterpart of an above-ground mausoleum. The foundation of the structure is eight feet below ground level, with a big internal space acting as a chapel. The structure was composed of a steel roof that was buried in red Alabama clay soil, with a ladder from street level heading down into the mound. Booth arranged the caskets on racks up to ten feet high in the wings. Because prices were determined on worker accessibility, the more expensive ones were on the lower racks.

Closed for business

Memorial Mound was only in operation for four years before closing down. This was due to a low number of clients; Alabama residents did not see the need for a memorial home, and unplugging them from their cultural ways proved difficult. Despite the fact that this was a case of client inattention and poor marketing and advertising on the part of the funeral home owner, Booth blamed some funeral homes for sabotage, claiming they directed clients to bury their loved ones elsewhere. The facility remained open for the less than a dozen clients who had their loved ones buried there. It was closed down completely in 2000 and was permanently abandoned following Booth's death in 2009.

Ruin in despair

Vandals ripped apart anything that could be used for scrap metal, including chairs from the chapel. As a result, the facility was in complete disarray. The government ignored the abandoned Mound for years until 2014 when images of decaying bodies in the Mound surfaced. This prompted the government to intervene and gain access to the building as it should have before the incident. The bodies were removed but were later returned to the families for proper burial. The building was completely shut down and is now under the control of the authorities. Authorities attempted unsuccessfully to contact the owner of the Memorial Mound, who inherited it from Booth.