Mica Cemetery accepted its first interment in 1883.
It’s the final resting place of military veterans, westward pioneers, and former Spokane County Sheriff Ezra Rinear who served in the 1890s.
When Mica township was dissolved, the cemetery came under the care of Spokane County—with about $40 allocated for its care.
That was in 1974. Since then, Senior director of public works Kyle Twohig says the county has relied on Boy Scouts, Kiwanis Club members, and neighbors to care for the plot.
“It is in a pretty poor state," Twohig said. "[It] really needs about 25,000 of work out there, just to bring it back to a reasonable state…The fence has been destroyed and parts stolen. The road is almost untravelable.”
The lack of care isn't for a lack of trying.
“We have tried to form a cemetery district, we've tried to annex the cemetery district, we have called, I think, every cemetery organization in the county to see if they would take it," he said in a presentation to the Board of County Commissioners. "We have failed in every attempt to find a proper caretaker for the cemetery.”
But finally, someone is asking to take it off the county’s hands.
Longtime Mica resident Mark Folsom is offering to form a nonprofit to own and preserve the cemetery.
Folsom and his wife recently lost their daughter.
After a community clean up in September, Folsom wondered if he could help preserve the cemetery and create a place to support other families who have lost children.
Twohig presented the idea to the Board of County Commissioners this week.
The board said they’d like to sell the plot for a nominal one dollar fee if Folsom can create a nonprofit to own and care for the property.
Folsom needs to get proper licensing and establish an endowment care trust fund of at least $25,000 before the decision moves to a public hearing.
