§ 14-54-803 — Power to require burial outside municipal limits

(a) Cities of the first and second class and incorporated towns shall have the power to prohibit the burial of the dead within their limits. (b) (1) Where old and abandoned burial grounds which are no longer kept up or used as such are situated within the limits of any such city or incorporated town, it may, by suitable ordinance, require persons having dead buried therein to cause them, within some reasonable time, to be removed and buried beyond the limits of the city or incorporated town. (2) In the event the bodies are not removed within the time specified in the ordinance of the city or incorporated town, after the ordinance has been published in the mode and manner prescribed by law, then the city or incorporated town may itself have the remains of all such persons as can be found removed and buried, as provided in this section. It may then and not before, by proper ordinance, vacate the cemetery or burial ground and declare that it is not any longer a cemetery exclusively used as such. Thereafter, the property shall become subject to taxation like other property.

Legislative History

Acts 1901, No. 102, § 1, p. 168; C. & M. Dig., § 7602; Acts 1929, No. 202, § 1; Pope's Dig., § 9697; A.S.A. 1947, § 19-2324.