It is not unusual to find within a city of the living an entire city for the dead. Riverside Cemetery represents one such necropolis for Oshkosh. The cemetery you see today, with more than 98 acres of burial grounds, was not always that way. In 1855 the city originally bought the non-denominational land with additional land purchases in 1882 and 1914. The Masonic burial section was established in 1868; the Grand Army of the Republic section, an area for Civil War veterans, was established in 1886 and the Catholic sections were added in 1855, 1875 and 1882-87. As of 2003 Riverside cemetery has more than 30,000 persons interred in it.

As Riverside cemetery expanded along with the growth of the city, a need for a chapel and receiving vault was realized. A chapel was designed by Oshkosh architect Julius Dreger and was built in 1920-21. Besides providing a chapel to hold services in, an office and restrooms were created along with a large receiving vault. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the chapel, when new, was the wait station. This structure, as seen in the photograph, fronted Algoma Boulevard and served as a place for cemetery visitors to wait for the bus or trolley. The wait station was torn down in 1970 when the street was expanded.

The chapel is designed in the then popular Romanesque Revival style. The elements that mark the Romanesque style are the use of rough stone blocks, short but stout buttresses, and round top archways, doorways and windows. Rough-faced limestone, quarried locally, was used to face the entire building and wait station. The building is laid out in a T-shaped form, with the front entrance aligned to the east and the top of the “T” running north and south. One other interesting feature of the chapel is the use of terra cotta roof tiles.

Entrance into the chapel is under a porte-cochere archway. The chapel seats 132 people in wooden pews. A carved wooden pulpit and ceiling beams are noted interior features as well as two oil paintings. Local artist Gustav Behncke painted both of them. One shows the resurrection and the other is of the crucifixion of Christ. The cemetery office and receiving vault are located in the western end of the building. The vault is 35 feet by 77 feet and is lined with crypts that could hold up to 120 caskets that were held over the winter when graves were dug by hand. The vault is no longer used, as power diggers now make it possible to dig through the frozen ground for winter burials.

On June 6, 2003 Riverside Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is an honor that the cemetery and its buildings fully deserve.

It should be noted that Riverside Cemetery does not typically allow public access to the chapel building.