HWY #22 ( VIKING BLVD ) AND CO. RD. #65 (BAUGH)

BURNS, ANOKA COUNTY, MN

updated: 2001

Burials

          This cemetery goes by two names, both St. John’s and Twin Lake.  The official name is St. John’s as it does belong to the church, St. John’s, but many people call it Twin Lake because of its location just a short distance from the lower part of Twin Lake.

          This is a church cemetery, so the vast majority of the people buried here were members of St. Johns’ Lutheran Church.  St. John’s began as a congregation in 1876 when ten families from Burns Township banded together to form a congregation.  They had circuit riding pastors or a pastor from another congregation in the area for the first years.  In 1878, they built their first church.  It was 28 feet long by 18 feet wide.  Two years later, in 1880, they set aside two acres of land to establish St. John’s Lutheran Church Cemetery.

          The oldest recorded burial is that of Emma Keen, a small child who died in 1880.  She does not have a marker in the cemetery any longer, if she ever did have one.  It is not known where she is buried, but there are two different Keen plots and it is assumed she is in one of them.

          The cemetery is active yet today, though membership or a family connection to membership in St. John’s Lutheran Church is requested.  As of 2007, there were about 550 graves at Twin Lake.  The cemetery has recently expanded to an additional section on the north side of the cemetery. 

          The first church building stood on the south side of the present cemetery with the parsonage behind it.  When the new church was completed in the 1970s, the old church and parsonage was removed.  There is some though that the area where the old church stood will be saved for future cemetery space when it is needed.