Alta City Cemetery

Alta was incorporated in 1970. There is no official cemetery and there is no visible cemetery, no headstones, no evidence whatsoever. However, there are historical records of death and murders in Alta with subsequent burials and a rich oral tradition supporting Alta’s cemetery. The cemetery, known as the Boots On cemetery is in the flat area below Alta’s steep and famous “High Rustler” ski run just east of the ticket sales building. Folklore talks about 110 people being buried in Boot Hill, half of which were killed in gunfights. The Utah Daughters of the Pioneers have a plaque that is put up along the road every summer near the beginning of a hiking trail that states there are 110 people buried in Boots On cemetery who were killed in gunfights, with another 140 headstones of residents killed by avalanche. Re: the avalanche deaths, there are accounts of victims being sledded out of the canyon and buried in the SLC cemetery or being sent back east for burial since the ground was frozen and covered with snow making it too hard to bury the victims in Alta. Again, none of that is verifiable or visible, but is very common legend. Elbert Despain, an old miner in the canyon whose family settled the mouth of the canyon now known as Granite, spoke of another cemetery. Elbert worked in the mines and after the mines closed he ran the little tourist mine car operation. In his later years, Elbert delivered the mail from the Sandy post office to Alta’s little contract post office. One day he told the story of another cemetery and pointed east toward the end of the paved road and the Grizzly Gulch area. That cemetery was for the Chinese laborers and the ladies of the evening because they were not allowed to be buried in the Boots On cemetery. There is no evidence of that cemetery either.