Ritzville Memorial Cemetery
The Ritzville Memorial Cemetery is owned and operated by the City of Ritzville.
​
The online map was created with Via Vista Mapping Services, a precise GPS system. The system captured a detailed picture of surface landmarks and used ground penetrating radar to locate the burials on the online map.
​
To locate a burial or reserved lot please view the online map or contact Ritzville City Hall at (509) 659-1930.
​
For cemetery lots and burial fees, please view page 13 in the city's fee schedule.
​​
Cemetery History
Formerly the German Zion Congregational Church Cemetery or the German Congregational Church Cemetery.
​
Year Officially Established: 1887, City accepted control on 12/7/1937 via Ordinance 327.
Earliest Burial Date:1887
Cemetery Acreage: 10.8
Number of Burials: 3,482 at the time of a software switchover in 2019
Percentage of Military Burials: 9% at the time of a software switchover in 2019
​
In the late 1800s, Germans were the second largest immigration group to come to the Northwest. They came to America to escape war and famine, and to satisfy a desire for liberty and take advantage of economic opportunity. They found homes either on the fertile farmlands of Eastern Washington, or in the larger cities.
​
Many of the German immigrants who settled in the Pacific Northwest did not come directly from Germany, rather they came from Russia. Catherine the Great, the German princess of Russia from 1762-1796, had acquired land from the Volga and Black Sea regions. Needing this land to be cultivated, she invited foreigners to live in Russia. The perks, as described in her manifesto, were many. Free transportation was to be provided for those who couldn’t afford it; the immigrants were given the choice of where to settle; freedom of religion (except for Muslims) was granted; interest-free loans were given for the purchase of household utensils and agricultural equipment, as was a 30-year exemption from taxes for farmers; local autonomy was given to communities of foreigners, and they were not required to serve in the military. This dream-world, however, didn’t last for long. These rights began to get slowly revoked in 1871 and the Russian government tried slowly to assimilate the immigrant populations. When this started, many German families decided to leave.
​
Two towns in Eastern Washington that were home to many of these Germans are Endicott and Ritzville. In 1883, Ritzville consisted of 17 German families that had left the village of Kolb in Russia several years earlier. Through these and other German settlements in Eastern Washington, the wheat industry, one of the mainstays of Washington State, was developed.
( https://depts.washington.edu/heritage/Immigration/immigration.htm )
The first Volga Germans came to Adams County, Washington, through Nebraska in 1883 when a group of 17 families under the leadership of Johann Friedrich Rosenoff arrived. By the mid-1890s, continuing immigration led to the Volga Germans being the largest ethnic group in the Ritzville area. This cemetery was founded by some of these same families concurrent with the town in 1887, and is presently an active cemetery. The cemetery has been surveyed by the Adams County Genealogical Society and complete transcriptions made as recently as 1999. Every Memorial Day weekend the cemetery is lined around the perimeter with American flags by volunteers to honor those who served.
​
Thirteen known inhabitants are listed on civilwarvetswastate.com including Birney Snyder, the last survivor of the G. A. R in Adams County. https://www.civilwarvetswastate.com/veterans/detail.html?veteranid=3372
All of these men were Ritzville area pioneers.