National Park Service adds 3 Missouri sites to Underground Railroad network

Three St. Louis-area locations have been added to the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom for their connections to enslaved people.
The National Park Service has added three St. Louis area locations to is National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom to help commemorate the history of enslaved people who escaped to freedom

The Tower Grove house at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the burial site of Archer Alexander at St. Peter's Cemetery in Normandy and Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale are now part of the program.

The program, founded in 1998, memorializes sites across the country tied to slavery and the Underground Railroad. The recently added sites join more than 750 locations across the U.S. and Canada.

“The Network to Freedom commemorates the courage, resilience and creativity of freedom seekers and provides insight to their struggles against oppression,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in a statement. "Every listing added to the program moves us closer to telling a more complete and inclusive history of our nation and its quest to form a more perfect union.”