[8][9] By June 1872, an 11 member management team had been formed for Elmwood Cemetery,[11] with Superintendent Edward Fleischer, well known founder of the Mechanics' Institute and the Exposition.

[12] Elmwood contains the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Kansas City,[7] because one of its first sales was 2 acres (0.81 ha) of the southwest corner to Reform Congregation Temple B'nai Jehudah.

[1][6] On June 7, 1896, Meyer and several other entrepreneurs who owned Elmwood lots and were concerned about planning for the inevitable potential future of a cemetery reaching unprofitable capacity and falling to a "mercenery company".

[6] Over time, the site acquired a vault and crematorium (c. 1897), entrance gate and fence (c. 1900), Kirkland B. Armour Chapel (1904, 1917), and Cemetery Office (1925).

Its application contains contemporary experts' detailed analyses of its typified and exemplary Victorian era art features and increasingly positive attitudes toward death as an inevitable component of life.

They cited art curator Naomi R. Remes describing 19th century rural cemeteries as being "for the deceased to be remembered and beauty beheld, for death was perceived as an exaulted state.