The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced the purchase of six acres of land in the town of Cassian in Oneida county to establish a new rural national cemetery, also referred to as a National Veterans Burial Ground.
The VA purchased the land from the town of Cassian for $24,000.
The new facility, west of Rhinelander, will serve approximately 25,000 veterans located in the service area of the cemetery. It will include burial and cremation sites, a memorial wall, flagpoles, a memorial walkway, roads and other infrastructure.
Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s only national cemetery, closed in 2001. The closest open national cemetery is Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.
There are three open VA-funded state Veterans cemeteries in Wisconsin located in Union Grove, King, and Spooner. The closest state Veterans cemetery to Cassian is the Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, located about 140 miles away in Spooner. VA operates 131 national cemeteries.
