CASPER, Wyoming – The Casper City Council has approved providing six burial plots at Highland Park Cemetery for a columbarium, a structure with niches for the interment of cremated, unclaimed remains.

City Manager Carter Napier told the council at a work session on Tuesday, August 27, that Natrona County would cover the cost of the structure and that the county commission had approved the letter of intent.

Zulima Lopez, the city’s parks and public facilities director, said maintaining the columbarium and future columbaria would be little burdensome for staff. The first columbarium would have space for 96 urns. She estimated it could take a decade or more to fill it. Then another would be built on the three adjacent lots.

“We believe it is the right thing to do to give these people a permanent resting place,” Lopez said. “Sometimes family members come to pick up a loved one … and we would know exactly where they were and who they were.”

Recent changes in state law allowed cremation of people who died indigent or were otherwise not claimed or identified. The Natrona County coroner has so far preserved the remains as required by law, Lopez said.

Natrona County Coroner Jim Whipps told the commission in May that his office had the remains of about 38 people from the past 10 to 15 years. All but 18 have been returned by actively searching family members, Whipps said.

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