Est. 1863 · Mineral Point Vampire Incident (1981) · Iowa County Cemetery History · Wisconsin Driftless Area Folklore
Graceland Cemetery was established in Mineral Point in 1863 during a period when Iowa County's population was growing following the lead-mining boom of the 1830s and 1840s. The cemetery sits adjacent to the Iowa County Fairgrounds north of downtown Mineral Point and has been in continuous use as a community burial ground since its founding.
The cemetery's outside reputation rests almost entirely on one documented night: March 14, 1981. Officer Jon Pepper of the Mineral Point Police Department was on duty when he observed a tall, pale figure near the cemetery. Pepper gave chase. The figure — described in his official report as approximately 6 feet 5 inches tall, dressed in a long black cape, with white face paint or unusually pale skin — fled through the cemetery grounds before clearing a four-foot fence and disappearing into the adjacent area. Pepper filed a formal police report. The local newspaper covered the story.
Pepper never recanted the report. The Driftless Times documented the incident in 2024 from newspaper archives and the original police account, confirming that the report was taken seriously enough to publish at the time. Subsequent sightings — attributed to different witnesses — were reported in 2004 and 2008. The Mineral Point Vampire became one of Wisconsin's more durable regional legends, documented across multiple news cycles spanning nearly four decades.
The cemetery itself is an active burial ground maintained by Iowa County. Its association with the vampire legend has made it a destination for visitors to the Driftless Area without disrupting its function as a place of interment.
Sources
- https://driftlesstimesmedia.com/2024/05/05/mineral-point-vampire-wisconsin-folklore/
- https://www.wisconsinfrights.com/mineral-point-vampire/
ApparitionsCaped figure sightings
The Mineral Point Vampire legend has an anchor that most regional folklore lacks: a filed police report. Officer Jon Pepper's account of March 14, 1981 was not a campfire story or secondhand rumor — it was documented in an official report and covered by the local newspaper at the time.
The details in Pepper's account are specific: the figure was approximately 6 feet 5 inches tall, dressed in what he described as a long black cape, and had white face paint or an unusually pale complexion. Pepper pursued the figure through Graceland Cemetery. At the fence line — a standard four-foot cemetery perimeter fence — the figure cleared it in a single motion and was gone. Pepper found no one on the other side.
The Driftless Times reviewed the original documentation in 2024 and confirmed the account had not been revised or retracted. Pepper maintained his original account consistently. The Mineral Point Police Department's response at the time — treating the report as a genuine filing rather than dismissing it — contributed to the story's persistence.
Reported sightings from 2004 and 2008 extended the record into the twenty-first century, attributed to different witnesses. Wisconsin Frights documented the full timeline from the 1981 incident through the later sightings, drawing on newspaper archives and investigative records. None of the post-1981 sightings produced documentation as specific as Pepper's original report, but their recurrence at the same location gave the legend a geographic consistency that distinguishes it from most vampire-adjacent folklore.
Notable Entities
The Mineral Point Vampire
