Photo: Google Maps
There’s a house in Virginia that is made entirely out of recycled gravestones. It’s been in Petersburg since the 1930s, and looks like it’s just made of plain old stones. But the marble stones are part of the same stones that mark the resting places of Union soldiers that died in the siege of Petersburg. They were used to build the house in an effort to recycle material from government-issued marble gravestones, which were used on the house and walkway. During the Great Depression the government couldn’t pay for the upkeep of the gravestones– so they were cut in half and the tops were placed flat on the ground, while the bottoms were auctioned off for $45 each. Oswald Young won 2,200 of the gravestone halves and used them to build his unique home.