Pet Cemetery Remains Next to Future Front Street Taco Bell Site

A dozen small stone markers remain at an old Binghamton-area pet cemetery just a few steps from where a new Taco Bell restaurant is to be built.

Few people are aware of the burial site just east of Interstate 81 in the town of Chenango.

The graves of most of the animals that were buried in the unmarked field over a period of several decades apparently were plowed over in 1988 when work started for a Hess gas station at the site.

According to a Press & Sun-Bulletin article, a local pet groomer noticed "headstones were strewn all over the place."

Harold O'Rynn said he had six dogs buried in the cemetery. He believed the total number of pet remains at the site was over 100.

Historian Gerald Smith said the pet cemetery represented "the last vestiges of Dr. Miles Markham's veterinary practice" that had operated for several years.

Smith recalled that "the Hess people for awhile always kept the little cemetery all mowed up."

The property where Hess operated a convenience store and gas station was sold to Speedway in 2014. Speedway shut down the operation about three years after the company acquired the property.

The abandoned Speedway building is to be torn down in a few months to clear the site for the new Taco Bell restaurant. An attorney for the project developers told the town zoning board that "we won't touch" what's left of the pet cemetery.

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Contact WNBF News reporter Bob Joseph: bob@wnbf.com. For breaking news and updates on developing stories, follow @BinghamtonNow on Twitter.