CARIBOU, Maine – Aroostook County’s only veterans cemetery will use a state grant to help more area veterans choose their final resting place.
The state of Maine recently was awarded $1,020,765 from the federal Veterans Cemetery Grants Program for Northern Maine Veterans Cemetery in Caribou, the only such cemetery north of Augusta.
Northern Maine Veterans Cemetery opened in 2003 thanks to the efforts of local donors and volunteers. At the 33.4-acre cemetery on Lombard Road, over 2,200 veterans and their spouses have been laid to rest, with 1,824 in ground burials and 1,053 in a cremation columbarium. Only around 100 spaces are left on the columbarium wall, said Roy Woods, chairperson of the Northern Maine Veterans Cemetery Committee.
“We always want to stay on top of this to make sure we have room for our veterans,” Woods said. “The walls have filled up really fast.”
The grant will pay for building three more walls that will add 576 columbarium niches, as well as for landscaping to plant flowers near those memorials and improved irrigation to divert rainfall from the sites.
The cemetery also hosts annual ceremonies on Memorial Day, POW/MIA Day and Veterans Day.
