Community Events

Summer hours start on May 1! Gates will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through September 15. 

Bird through peak bloom (we hope!) with the Detroit Bird Alliance and the Historic Elmwood Foundation! Learn about our historic cemetery and arboretum on a leisurely birding walk. This field trip is great for birders of all ages and experience levels. Bring your own binoculars or Detroit Bird Alliance will have some to borrow. We'll serve refreshments in our historic chapel following the walk. May 9 at 8:30 a.m. — register with the Detroit Bird Alliance. 

Elmwood Cemetery has been integrated since its founding in 1846, making it one of the oldest integrated cemeteries in the Midwest and a rich site of Detroit’s Black heritage. Join Jamon Jordan, Official Historian for the City of Detroit, for a captivating walking tour as he shares stories from 200 years of Black history. From abolitionists William Lambert and George DeBaptiste to Mayor Coleman Young and Martha Jean “The Queen” Steinberg, we’ll visit notable Black leaders, luminaries, activists, entrepreneurs, artists and more who made Detroit the city it is today. It's May 23 at 11 a.m. This tour is free, but please sign up here!

Thousands of service members are buried at Elmwood going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Elmwood is also the site of a Civil War soldiers lot and a Firemen's Fund Memorial and burial lot where the Detroit Firemen's Fund hosts a biannual Memorial Day remembrance event. On May 24 at 10 a.m., we'll visit the graves of service members, firefighters and police officers who died in the line of duty, share stories about the history of Detroit's police and fire departments, and learn about the origin and evolution of Memorial Day.

Historic Elmwood Foundation Director Amy Elliott Bragg co-leads this tour with Bill McGraw, a journalist in Detroit for more than 50 years, mainly at the Free Press. He is the creator of The Detroit Almanac and "The Quotations of Mayor Coleman A. Young" and covered the fire department when he worked at the Freep. This free tour will last about 2 hours, mostly on paved roads, but there will be some gentle hills and we will venture onto the grass. Sign up here.

Our office will be closed in observance of the Memorial Day holiday, but our gates will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. We welcome visitors to stop outside the office and take a carnation or a flag for your loved one's grave.