CLEARWATER, Fla. — Archeologists with USF are at a possible lost grave site in Clearwater this week, using ground penetrating radar to detect whether there are lost graves at the site.

The empty lot is located next to the FrankCrum building on South Missouri Avenue. 

Zeb Atkinson, NAACP Clearwater/Upper Pinellas Branch president, said at one time there was a cemetery nearby the site that served what was then a predominantly black neighborhood known as Clearwater Heights.  Atkinson said the people buried there were supposedly moved in the 1950s to Parklawn Memorial Cemetery in Dunedin.

However, the concern now is whether those buried without headstones were mistakenly left behind.

“Hopefully there's nothing that they find. Everything hopefully was done correctly,” said Atkinson. “Based on the community and based on some of the conversations we've had with some grave diggers, if there was a grave that wasn't marked, the people that were here to move them didn't know that there was a person there."

The ground penetrating radar is the first step in determining if that is the case.

"It shoots radio waves into the ground and detects any changes in the soil or any changes that might be underground," said Jeff Moates, Regional Director of the Florida Public Archeology Network.  

The team will be working at the site for the next few days.  A spokesperson for FrankCrum provided the following statement:

"It's been a pleasure to work with Zebbie Atkinson from the NAACP and the Clearwater Heights community leaders, and we're united in our interests.  I'm very supportive of the work that USF's archeology team is doing, and we've appointed a point person here to ensure access and resources to get the survey work completed." – Frank Crum Jr., President and CEO