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transformed into a highly profitable business in the 1910s and 1920s. Imitators quickly followed, spawning over six hundred memorial parks in America by 1935.3 Sunset Memorial Park Early in 1927, Armour and Company of Chicago announced plans to establish Sunset Memorial Park on a 100-acre parcel that the company had held for twenty years. The cemetery site was just across Saint Anthony Boulevard from a golf course that the company had developed and subsequently sold to the City of Minneapolis. The cemetery's total cost was estimated at one million dollars. At least thirty acres were to be developed immediately following plans prepared by Morell and Nichols, a Minneapolis landscape architectural and engineering firm. The nonsectarian cemetery"will be the only one in the northwest constructed on the park plan," the Minneapolis Tribune reported in April 1927. "There will be no individual monuments, each grave to be marked with a headstone which will be level with the ground. Monuments will be erected in each section, with a central monument dominating the entire park."4 By the end of October, the Minneapolis Tribune reported that"work has now been completed on the initial four sections of the park at the south end of the property. All of the streets have been paved, curbs built, lawn sprinkling systems installed, grading completed and the beginning made of landscaping."A newspaper advertisement in late November declared: "The officials of Sunset Memorial Park, `A Resting Place Beautiful,' wish you to know that on and after December 1, 1927, they are ready to accept interments."The facility was, the advertisement continued, "America's finest burial park. New, modern equipment. Competent supervision."The offices of the Memorial Park Association were at 808 LaSalle Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.5 The plan for the remainder of the park was ambitious. "At the entrance to the park the architects have called for the construction of an ornamental administration building and gateway of stone. In the building will be the offices of the superintendent of the park and restrooms. The entrance is at the head of a mall which runs from the east to the west end of the property and ends in an impressive chapel where burial services will be conducted."The chapel would be reflected in a "Roman pool"in the mall. A network of drives would"encircle every section and wind their way through this park of beautiful contour." Each section would be distinguished by a unique monument. A crowd of 2,000 witnessed the dedication of Sunset Memorial Park and its first four monuments in June 1928. Within a few years the "Tower of Memories,"the park's largest monument, had been erected midway down the mall.6 Work on the chapel and mausoleum building was initiated in the early 1930s. The plans were drafted by Lovell and Lovell, architects based in Chicago. The first of three proposed phases created a 160-foot by 100-foot structure holding a 200-seat chapel and 1,000 to 2,000 crypts. Later phases called for increasing the building's dimensions to 350 feet by 150 feet, its height to 3 Sloane,Last Great Necessity,2, 139. 157. 4"Sunset Park Project Work to Be Started,"Minneapolis Tribune,April 3, 1927;"Armours Back Memorial Park Development,"Minneapolis Star,October 20, 1927. 5"Armours Back Memorial Park Development";"Announcement,"Minneapolis Tribune,November 27, 1927. 6"Armours Back Memorial Park Development";"Sunset Park Cemetery Dedication Rites Held,"Minneapolis Tribune,June 18, 1928. Sunset Memorial Park Administration Building Preliminary National Register and Condition Assessment—Page 3