Eureka cemetery thefts cease for now

EUREKA, Juab County — No one has stolen anything from the historic Eureka cemetery in at least a month, and Mayor Milt Hanks hopes the thieves don't come back.

"We have a tradition in this town that we put things on graves that the person liked," Hanks said. "So if they liked fishing, someone may put a small statue of a fisherman on the grave."

Some of those items have been stolen from the graves in the past year. Hanks suspects the thieves may be kids, but not local kids.

"We're so interconnected here that it would be like stealing from grandpa's grave," he said.

The trinkets taken were only of sentimental value, but it was upsetting to townspeople, Hanks said. The thefts have been going on sporadically for about a year and remain a mystery.

The Juab County Sheriff's Office stepped up patrols and even stopped a Salt Lake City television crew as they were packing up after doing a story on the thefts.

Eureka was settled by miners who worked in what was once considered the richest silver mine. The town was incorporated in 1891. That was the year the courthouse that is now the Town Hall was built.

For now, a thick blanket of snow covers the graves, so "no one is stealing anything," Hanks said.

The cemetery has several sections, including an area where miners were buried. Some of the tombstones date back to the 1870s, when miners first started working the mines.

"Some of the tombstones are quite exotic," Hanks said.

e-mail: rodger@desnews.com