Prairie Home Cemetery, established in 1875, is the oldest cemetery in Moorhead. Many of the city's settler colonists are buried here, such as Solomon G. Comstock, a member of the Minnesota State Legislature and Congress, and Randolph Probstfield, the first permanent european settler in the Red River Valley. It inspired the name of Garrison Keillor's famous National Public Radio (NPR) program A Prairie Home Companion.
In 1871 the Northern Pacific Railroad reached the Red River, which is the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. The communities that quickly sprang up on either side of the river were named Fargo and Moorhead. Presbyterian pastor Rev. Oscar H. Elmer was sent as a missionary to Moorhead to start a church, which held its first service in October, 1871. Rev. Elmer is supposed to have been the first ordained member of the Christian clergy in Fargo-Moorhead.
As Moorhead became established, the need for a cemetery logically followed. Reverend Elmer's brother, John, came to visit from New York in 1874, but drowned in the Red River before his return to the east coast. His body was discovered on June 1, 1874, and he was buried in a temporary location marked by a rope between two trees.
Due to the condition of his brother's body, Rev. Elmer was unable to transport it back east for burial, as was the usual custom. This is probably what motivated Rev. Elmer and six other prominent Moorhead residents to establish a cemetery. The Lake Superior and Puget Sound Company agreed to sell a five-acre plat for one dollar for use as a cemetery, though the land was not officially deeded until 1876. On April 27, 1875, the Prairie Home Cemetery Association was officially incorporated. The seven charter members were Rev. Oscar H. Elmer, Solomon G. Comstock, James H. Sharp, John Kurtz, Niles Peterson, W. B. Nickels, and William H. White.
At the time that Prairie Home Cemetery was organized, it was situated well out of town (to the south) and surrounded by farmland. The first recorded burial there was typhoid victim Bernard Berg on May 19, 1875. Lots were sold for five dollars apiece.
Space quickly became an issue in the small graveyard. Since lots were purchased by families and contained multiple graves, available acreage ran out before the land filled with graves. At only five acres, it was smaller than most rural cemeteries, and all lots were sold by 1882.
Many of the older graves in the cemetery are unmarked, giving the appearance that parts of the cemetery are vacant, although this is not the case.
In 1884, land was purchased north of Moorhead on the banks of the Red River for another cemetery. This land was purchased from Catherine and George Hodges at forty dollars an acre. Their two-year-old daughter, Catherine, had been one of the first burials in Prairie Home Cemetery in 1875. This second cemetery was named Riverside Cemetery. In the 1920s the Riverside Cemetery Association and the Prairie Home Cemetery Association merged, and the name of their new organization was the "Prairie Home and Riverside Cemetery Association."
Since lots were sold so cheaply, there were no funds to maintain Prairie Home Cemetery. People were expected to look after their family's lot, but this didn't always happen. On occasion, efforts were made to make the cemetery more aesthetically appealing, such as when fences around family lots were banned. The cemetery was not able to hire a caretaker until 1902.
Sometime around the 1960s, a local boy scout troop conducted a cleanup of the cemetery. The cemetery's state of neglect had prompted at least one family to relocate its loved ones to Riverside Cemetery in Moorhead.
Prairie Home Cemetery served as inspiration for Garrison Keillor when he needed a name for his variety radio program. In 1971, Keillor was in Moorhead to give a reading at Moorhead State University. When he went on a walk the next day, he saw the sign for Prairie Home Cemetery. The name stuck with him, but he knew he couldn't use the word "cemetery" in his radio program's name. He decided on the word "companion" to honor the group of friends he spent time with during his trip to Moorhead. Thus, his radio program became A Prairie Home Companion.
In 1992 much-needed renovation work was completed at the cemetery. Alleyways between lots were platted into new lots and sold as a final attempt to utilize the cemetery's limited acreage. Due to Moorhead's growth since 1875, the cemetery is now surrounded by homes and Concordia College, and is situated more towards the center of Moorhead.
Today, the Prairie Home & Riverside Cemetery Association consists of three cemeteries, as the Moorhead Memorial Gardens Cemetery (located south of present-day Moorhead) was added at some point.
As of 2022, there are no more available lots for sale in Prairie Home Cemetery, but since its renovation work in 1992, it has been cared for consistently and several burials still take place every year.