Historic Murphysburg
Fairview Cemetery & Julius Fischer Tombstone
Joplin’s first municipal cemetery and the resting place of civic leader Julius Fischer, whose 1890 county-clerk race became part of women’s political history.
At a Glance
- Address
- 13th Street & Maiden Lane, Joplin, Missouri 64801
- Year Built
- In use by 1832; municipal cemetery by 1873
- Architectural Style
- Municipal cemetery and funerary monuments
- Current Use
- Municipal cemetery
- Public Access
- Open to public
- Preservation Status
- Standing
- District / Designation
- Joplin historic cemetery
Story
Fairview Cemetery is one of Joplin’s oldest surviving cultural landscapes. Burial use at the site—originally called Joplin Cemetery—dates to at least 1832, decades before Joplin’s incorporation. In September 1873, Mayor E. R. Moffet documented the cemetery’s release for public use, establishing it as Joplin’s first municipal cemetery. The name Fairview was in common use by the early twentieth century.
Among the people buried here is Julius Fischer, a German immigrant who came to Jasper County in the 1870s. Fischer worked with the Granby Mining & Smelting Company, served on the Joplin School Board, and was Joplin city clerk. He also built the 1880s farmhouse at 315 South Sergeant Avenue, now recognized as one of Murphysburg’s oldest homes.
Fischer is best remembered nationally for the 1890 Jasper County clerk election. He lost to Annie White Baxter, who became the first woman elected as a county clerk in the United States—about thirty years before women gained the vote nationwide. The contest made news far beyond Missouri and turned a local election into an important episode in women’s political history.