‘Ground truthing’ the next step in Tropicana Field grave search
March 9, 2026 at 10:57 AM EDT
Ground-penetrating radar identified 10 possible burial sites under Parking Lot 1.
There may be as many as 10 human bodies buried beneath the asphalt and soil of Tropicana Field’s Parking Lot 1.
If they’re in fact under there, they were originally interred at Oaklawn Cemetery, which stood on the site between 1906 and 1926.
City Council voted last week to fund the latest step in a multi-part exploration and, if necessary, exhumation process that began in 2020, and continued as plans for the area’s redevelopment were formulated. One proviso insisted on by the Council was that the latest work will not begin until the 2026 baseball season has ended, in September or October.
(They’ve been in the ground for a century or more. What’s a couple of months?)
Thursday’s vote was unanimous (with Councilmember Corey Givens Jr. absent) to pay the Canada-based Stantec Consulting Services $378,896 for “ground truthing,” which means carefully digging to determine whether underground objects detected by Stantec’s ground-penetrating radar are indeed coffins containing human remains. Or construction debris. Or something else altogether.
(768x997, AR: 0.7703109327983951)
The 10-acre Oaklawn cemetery, at the intersection of 16th Street and 5th Avenue S., closed in 1926. Known remains were disinterred and relocated to other city graveyards when construction commenced on the Royal Court Apartments, a public housing complex, in 1949.
The St. Petersburg Housing Authority purchased the complex in 1966, and renamed it Laurel Park. Earmarked in those segregated times for Black housing, the 167 two-bedroom apartments were demolished in the 1980s, along with the neighboring Gas Plant neighborhoods, to make way for Tropicana Field.
Records from the Oaklawn era are incomplete. Ground-penetrating radar identified areas on the southern border of Lot 1 that may well be gravesites, and according to existing paperwork, the Masonic Lodge purchased several plots in the area after the turn of the 20th century.
As Planning Director Derek Kilborn told councilmembers at their March 5 meeting, the discovery of that information “was really important because it can also help us match up potential burials and individuals’ names and families.”
ALSO READ: Report: 10 possible graves found at Tropicana Field
“Once anything, as part of this exploratory analysis, is identified, the first step is to stop work and contact the state archaeological officer,” said Capital Improvements Director Brajesh Prayman. And that’s a regulated process, governed by Florida statutes.
“That’s the first thing that will happen if anything is identified,” Prayman said.
Oaklawn Cemetery was for white residents only; two smaller graveyards to the south, Evergreen and Moffett, were reserved for Black residents and veterans, respectively.
According to existing records, all Evergreen and Moffett graves were most likely relocated after the cemeteries closed (Black graves went to Gulfport’s controversial Lincoln Cemetery). The sites are now separated from the former Oaklawn cemetery by an extension of 5th Avenue S.
Dr. Antoinette T. Jackson, professor and chair of the University of South Florida’s Department of Anthropology, pointed out that the land that once housed Evergreen and Moffett is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), not the City of St. Petersburg. An I-175 spur towers over the site.
“That’s another whole entity that has to be involved in the conversation,” said Jackson, founder of the nationwide Black Cemetery Network. “I, of course, am advocating for focus on all three. But I believe, because of the entities involved, what the mayor’s team is doing is continuing something that had already been initiated. And the FDOT stuff is on the table, I suppose, at some point.”
Because historical records don’t provide any absolutes, Jackson said, “Why not go ahead and recognize those cemeteries – all three of them – and do the proper diligence and memorials? Why do we need to dig up stuff, anyway?
“No one can confirm that they moved all the bodies. But they do know that there were cemeteries there, and that total due diligence was not done at the time, to document those removals or to notify families about what was going on, necessarily.”
Whatever happens next, she adds, “I think it’s a long time coming, that we really need to focus on the fact that those cemeteries need to be recognized and honored, and those families addressed.”
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
If they’re in fact under there, they were originally interred at Oaklawn Cemetery, which stood on the site between 1906 and 1926.
City Council voted last week to fund the latest step in a multi-part exploration and, if necessary, exhumation process that began in 2020, and continued as plans for the area’s redevelopment were formulated. One proviso insisted on by the Council was that the latest work will not begin until the 2026 baseball season has ended, in September or October.
(They’ve been in the ground for a century or more. What’s a couple of months?)
Thursday’s vote was unanimous (with Councilmember Corey Givens Jr. absent) to pay the Canada-based Stantec Consulting Services $378,896 for “ground truthing,” which means carefully digging to determine whether underground objects detected by Stantec’s ground-penetrating radar are indeed coffins containing human remains. Or construction debris. Or something else altogether.
(768x997, AR: 0.7703109327983951)
The 10-acre Oaklawn cemetery, at the intersection of 16th Street and 5th Avenue S., closed in 1926. Known remains were disinterred and relocated to other city graveyards when construction commenced on the Royal Court Apartments, a public housing complex, in 1949.
The St. Petersburg Housing Authority purchased the complex in 1966, and renamed it Laurel Park. Earmarked in those segregated times for Black housing, the 167 two-bedroom apartments were demolished in the 1980s, along with the neighboring Gas Plant neighborhoods, to make way for Tropicana Field.
Records from the Oaklawn era are incomplete. Ground-penetrating radar identified areas on the southern border of Lot 1 that may well be gravesites, and according to existing paperwork, the Masonic Lodge purchased several plots in the area after the turn of the 20th century.
As Planning Director Derek Kilborn told councilmembers at their March 5 meeting, the discovery of that information “was really important because it can also help us match up potential burials and individuals’ names and families.”
ALSO READ: Report: 10 possible graves found at Tropicana Field
“Once anything, as part of this exploratory analysis, is identified, the first step is to stop work and contact the state archaeological officer,” said Capital Improvements Director Brajesh Prayman. And that’s a regulated process, governed by Florida statutes.
“That’s the first thing that will happen if anything is identified,” Prayman said.
Oaklawn Cemetery was for white residents only; two smaller graveyards to the south, Evergreen and Moffett, were reserved for Black residents and veterans, respectively.
According to existing records, all Evergreen and Moffett graves were most likely relocated after the cemeteries closed (Black graves went to Gulfport’s controversial Lincoln Cemetery). The sites are now separated from the former Oaklawn cemetery by an extension of 5th Avenue S.
Dr. Antoinette T. Jackson, professor and chair of the University of South Florida’s Department of Anthropology, pointed out that the land that once housed Evergreen and Moffett is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), not the City of St. Petersburg. An I-175 spur towers over the site.
“That’s another whole entity that has to be involved in the conversation,” said Jackson, founder of the nationwide Black Cemetery Network. “I, of course, am advocating for focus on all three. But I believe, because of the entities involved, what the mayor’s team is doing is continuing something that had already been initiated. And the FDOT stuff is on the table, I suppose, at some point.”
Because historical records don’t provide any absolutes, Jackson said, “Why not go ahead and recognize those cemeteries – all three of them – and do the proper diligence and memorials? Why do we need to dig up stuff, anyway?
“No one can confirm that they moved all the bodies. But they do know that there were cemeteries there, and that total due diligence was not done at the time, to document those removals or to notify families about what was going on, necessarily.”
Whatever happens next, she adds, “I think it’s a long time coming, that we really need to focus on the fact that those cemeteries need to be recognized and honored, and those families addressed.”
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com