Johnson County Missouri

Miller Mausoleum

One day my best friend and I went out for a drive. We were just outside the tiny town of Holden, Missouri when we came upon the Miller Mausoleum. It didn’t seem possible that this mausoleum was just sitting out in the country like that. So what do you do when you’re driving down a country road and stumble upon a really cool mausoleum? Well you pull over and go investigate! I had never seen anything like this before and I have been to a lot of cemeteries. So after doing a little research, this is the information I came up with:

The mausoleum was built by Joseph M. Miller, a prominent citizen of Madison Township in Johnson County, Missouri. He was a teacher, a farmer, and a man who liked to read the Bible. He decided he didn’t want to be buried because of his concern about the water that settles into graves. He appreciated the ideas of people in the Bible burying their dead in caves where they would be dry. He began working on the mausoleum in 1916 and it became known as “Joseph’s Tomb”. It’s not clear exactly when the main structure was finished but in 1934 the doors and windows were still not in. The walls of the first floor are three feet thick and those of the second floor are two feet thick. Above the second floor is a turret with a dome on top that is flattened into an observation platform. One of the main entrances leads down into the family crypt. The second floor of the tomb was devoted to religious pictures and space for a museum. There also used to be a park surrounding the building. Joseph Miller’s father, brothers, sisters and six children of his and his wife, Laura, are interred there.

I was recently contacted by a Miller family member who informed me that plans are in the works to have it deemed a historical landmark. When I get an update on this I will update this story.

Click on the link below to see a Google map of the area. The mausoleum is the gray building on the left side of the highway.

http://www.us-city-home.com/missouri/holden/whats_around/buildings/Miller_Mausoleum-4398399.html