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PROVO -- The Utah Department of Transportation is defending the way it reacted to the discovery of a tombstone at a construction site on I-15, but some construction workers remain angry.
Headstone unearthed
On Aug. 12, Yvonne Carlsen was using a trackhoe to dig up ground near I-15 and Center Street in Provo, preparing it for a new off-ramp. That's when she hit what she first thought was a chunk of cement.
"When I rolled it up over the pile (of dirt), I noticed there was some carvings on the back, very pretty carvings," said Carlsen.
She asked one of the other workers to go take a closer look.
"He walked down there and rolled it over and said, ‘Yvonne, it's a headstone.' I go, 'No it's not.' He goes, ‘Yes, it's a headstone,'" said Carlsen.
From there, the workers stopped and called a supervisor to have the area looked over. Carlsen says she was surprised when they were told to get back to work while the supervisor looked over the 2.5-foot-tall headstone, then loaded it into a pickup truck and took off.
Research reveals details about headstone
UDOT spokesman Scott Thompson says the headstone was cleaned off, inspected and photographed by members of the company's environmental team.
Research into census and state archive records and found the headstone was over 100 years old and belonged to Marion Dillman.
Dillman's death certificate shows he was born in 1887, and died in April of 1904; he was 17 years old. It also says Dillman was buried at the Rock Point Cemetery in Uintah County.
"We have no idea how it made it from Unitah County to Provo Center Street," Thompson said.
But UDOT does know the marker was removed from the grave and replaced.
"In the research we did, we found there was a larger marker, a monument, put on the grave site for the family," Thompson said.
As to why the area near Center Street in Provo wasn't carefully inspected after the headstone was found, Thompson said there wasn't a need to do so.
"There was no remains, no grave at that area, no cemetery there," he said. "Actually, Center Street predates even the marker that we found."
Once it was determined the headstone had somehow been dumped in Provo, it was ground up with the other material that was taken out of the site.
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Story compiled with contributions from Randall Jeppesen, Becky Bruce and Amanda Butterfield.
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