Cave Hill Cemetery Cave Hill Cemetery is a Victorian era National Cemetery and arboretum located at 701 Baxter Avenue , Louisville , Kentucky , United States . It is open daily to the public from 8 : 00 AM to 4 : 45 PM ( weather permitting ) . Its main entrance is on Baxter Avenue and there is a secondary one on Grinstead Drive . Both former Louisville mayors for whom these streets are named ( James F . Grinstead and John G . Baxter ) , are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery . It is the largest cemetery by area and number of burials in Louisville . Cave Hill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 . Cave Hill National Cemetery , containing military graves , is also on the National Register , added in 1998 . History . Cave Hill was chartered in 1848 on what was William Johnston ' s Cave Hill Farm , then a rural property some distance east of Louisville . Johnston , who died in 1798 , had built the first brick house in Louisville on the grounds circa 1788 . City officials had purchased part of the land in the 1830s in anticipation of building a railroad through it , and a workhouse was built there . The railroad was built elsewhere , and the land was leased to local farmers . In 1846 , Mayor Frederick A . Kaye began investigating the possibility of developing a garden - style cemetery on the grounds , a popular concept at the time . Hartford , Connecticut civil engineer Edmund Francis Lee was hired , who planned a cemetery with winding paths , graves across the tops of hills , and lakes and ponds in the valleys . The Cave Hill Cemetery Co . was chartered in February 1848 , and the cemetery was dedicated on July 25 , 1848 . Reverend E . P . Humphrey delivered the dedicatory address , and elaborated on the idea of the garden cemetery , noting , among other things , that " . . . Reason and taste suggest that [ this cemetery ] should be decorated appropriately by the beautiful productions of our great Creator . . . " Before the era of large municipal parks , it was common for cities to promote a garden cemetery as a green oasis and recreation destination , and Louisville was no exception . This largely ended with the opening of Cherokee Park in 1892 . After administrators sold several acres of land for the burial of Union soldiers during the Civil War , local Confederate supporters purchased nearby land as well . Several deceased patients from the Brown General Hospital and other nearby army medical facilities were interred in Cave Hill Cemetery . Johnston ' s farmhouse ( in what is now sections 33 and 34 ) was converted to the city ' s pesthouse , and was demolished in 1872 . Also in 1872 , Beechhurst Sanitarium was built near the pesthouse and the modern Grinstead entrance . Beechurst was torn down in 1936 . The grounds were expanded and remapped in 1888 to their modern size of nearly . In the 1980s , razor wire was added to the brick walls surrounding Cave Hill to keep out after - hours visitors . The first scenic overlook for the cemetery , Twin Lakes Scenic Overlook , opened on August 20 , 2008 . Buildings and grounds . The signature Baxter Avenue entrance , called the Broadway Entrance by the cemetery , was completed in 1892 . The Corinthian - style building includes a bell in its clock tower . The tower , once the tallest structure for miles , was frequently hit by lightning and last renovated in 2001 . The Grinstead Drive entrance was built in 1913 . The third public entrance on the residential street of Dearing Court was closed as of 2007 . Another public entrance , also no longer in use , was built off Payne Street in 1910 , closest to the military sections . There are several service entrances around the perimeter . Other buildings include the stone office building near the lake , and the Rustic Shelter House built in 1892 at a cost of $ 565 . The cemetery contains monuments and graves of three Union generals . The 32nd Indiana Monument , also known as the " August Bloedner Monument " , is separately on the National Register . The middle fork of Beargrass Creek runs through Cave Hill , and a source stream flowing into the creek roughly divides the cemetery in new ( eastern ) and old ( western ) sections . That stream flows from a spring near the cave that gave the property its name . The cave can be entered for about , and then there is a marginal amount of crawl space beyond that , however the cave is officially off limits . There are also five man - made lakes . The cemetery currently features more than 500 species of trees and shrubs , including some two dozen current state champion trees , including both native species such as pignut hickory ( " Carya glabra " ) and exotics such as Caucasian wingnut ( " Pterocarya fraxinifolia " ) . It is well known as an arboretum . Interments . There were about 120 , 000 people interred by 2002 , with space remaining for 22 , 000 more graves . More than 200 Confederate soldiers are buried in Section " O " of the cemetery , with 30 - 40 buried in a row in the National Cemetery . The original wooden markers in Section " O " were replaced with stone markers in 1880 – 1881 . A number of markers are marked as unknown . Included in the Section " O " burials is a Confederate Brigadier General , Alpheus Baker . There are two other Confederate generals buried in other locations in the cemetery . In the addition to Section " O " ( lot 267½ ) are a number of residents of the Kentucky Confederate Home , who died around the start of the 20th century . The Confederate Flag flies over the area .