New national cemetery for veterans being built in southern Utah

CEDAR CITY, Utah — A hill overlooking Cedar City is filled with the noise of construction equipment right now, but a defense department official hopes the under-construction cemetery will soon be a serene resting place for southern Utah’s veterans.

Tony Thomas, who oversees national cemeteries in Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, said he stood on the site of what will be the Southern Utah National Cemetery a year ago and visualized a place of beauty with the scenery of Iron County below.

“The importance of that is, you know, when you’ve got family members that are in a grieving process, to be able to have a place that’s so serene with such a beautiful view,” said Thomas, the director of the Fort Logan National Cemetery Complex under the Department of Veterans Affairs. “What Utah is known for are beautiful mountains.”

The cemetery, which was officially named on Monday, will be the first national cemetery in Utah south of Provo, and officials say it will fill a glaring hole toward a growing veteran population in Cedar City, St. George and the rest of southern Utah.

Southern Utah already includes the Southern Utah Veterans Home in Ivins, where many locals who have served their country spend their final days.

Now, they will have a place for their final rest.

“The rural initiative for the National Cemetery Administration is based on these areas where we have these veteran populations that are underserved,” Thomas said. “We have a huge veteran population up in St. George, and they’re going to be served as well as the veterans out in Cedar City.”