Crown Hill Cemetery was dedicated on June 1, 1864. The first burial at Crown Hill was the body of Lucy Ann Seaton, aged thirty-three, a young mother who had died of consumption. Later that year James Pattison built a stone gateway for $2,300 at the cemetery's west entrance off of Michigan Road. The cemetery's east entrance at Thirty-fourth Street opened in 1864. Omnibus transportation reached the cemetery in 1864. Visitors could also travel by steam-powered boat up the Central Canal to reach Crown Hill. Automobiles were allowed on the grounds beginning in 1912.