Eau Claire's oldest cemetery holds a 1908 Neogothic chapel built over 24 underground receiving vaults where bodies waited through frozen Wisconsin winters for burial.
Emery St, Eau Claire, WI 54703
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit during daylight hours. The Eau Claire Dark History Trolley Tour ($38/person) includes access to the chapel's underground vaults.
Access
Limited Access
Cemetery grounds with paved and unpaved paths; Putnam Chapel has a narrow staircase leading to the underground vaults
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1908 · National Register of Historic Places · Neogothic funerary architecture · Victorian-era winter interment practice · Chippewa Valley founding families
Forest Hill Cemetery dates to the late 1850s, making it the oldest cemetery in Eau Claire and one of the oldest in western Wisconsin. By the time the Putnam Chapel was built in 1908, the grounds already held the remains of many of the city's founding families and Civil War-era settlers. The cemetery has accumulated more than 12,000 burials across its history.
Jane E. Balcolm Putnam arrived in Eau Claire in 1857 and married Henry C. Putnam in 1858. Henry became a prominent land agent and timber cruiser who helped establish the Chippewa Valley Bank and the Eau Claire Linen Company. Jane founded the city's first public library in 1875. When she died in 1907, she left instructions in her will for the construction of a chapel at Forest Hill Cemetery 'for the people of Eau Claire.' Her husband Henry carried out the bequest and funded the construction.
The resulting Neogothic structure features stone walls, lancet-pointed windows, buttressed corners, and a red barrel tile roof. The apse section at the rear contains 24 receiving vaults — compartments designed to hold coffins through Wisconsin winters when the ground was too frozen for burial. The bodies would remain in the vaults until spring thaw allowed interment. The vaults are no longer used for this purpose. Seven members of the Putnam family, including Jane and Henry, are entombed in crypts beneath the chapel floor.
The chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 7, 2000 (NRHP Reference 99001663). It is now used primarily for storage.
Sources
The primary draw at Forest Hill Cemetery is not a traditional haunting narrative but the documented reality of what the Putnam Chapel's vaults were used for. The 24 receiving vaults in the apse held the bodies of Eau Claire residents through winter months — sometimes for months at a time — until spring thaw allowed interment in the frozen ground. The narrow staircase leading down to the vault level is accessible only on the Chippewa River Trolley's Dark History Tour.
The Eau Claire Dark History Tour includes Forest Hill Cemetery as a signature stop. Tour participants descend to the vault level with red flashlights and an audio narrative covering the cemetery's history and the use of the receiving vaults. The subterranean chapel space is described as one of the most viscerally affecting stops on the route.
Beyond the vault experience, the cemetery's age — dating to the late 1850s — and its density of burials from Eau Claire's lumber-era families make it a significant site for anyone tracing the city's history.
Notable Entities
Self-guided walk through Eau Claire's oldest cemetery, established in the late 1850s with over 12,000 burials. The 1908 Putnam Chapel is visible from the cemetery grounds and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Chippewa River Trolley's 90-minute Dark History Tour makes Forest Hill Cemetery a signature stop, including rare access to the Putnam Chapel's underground receiving vaults via a narrow staircase. Tour departs from The Local Store, 205 N Dewey St.
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