Lakeside Cemetery/The Magic Graveyard

In 1832 early European settlers of the area established this cemetery on a one-acre parcel and drafted the first plat map of Colon. The plat was recorded in 1844, and Colon incorporated as a village in 1904. Additional acreage purchased in 1838 and 1876 connected the cemetery to Sturgeon Lake. Some of the earliest interments at the cemetery were victims of the waves of malaria that swept across the area throughout the mid-nineteenth century. In the late 1920s Harry Blackstone, one of America’s best-known magicians, invited Percy Abbott, an Australian magician, to the area. Abbott started the Abbott Magic Company in 1934 and sponsored the town’s first “Magic Get Together” the following year. Colon took the name “Magic Capital of the World” as magicians flocked to the village to purchase the latest in magic tricks and attend annual festivals. The Magic Graveyard The first magic entertainers buried at Lakeside Cemetery were residents of Colon who had worked for Harry Blackstone’s show. In 1942 Skippy LaMore became the first magician buried here. The tradition of magicians being buried at the “Magic Graveyard” began after the 1965 burial of Harry Blackstone. Because the cemetery was only for residents of Colon, non-residents who wished to be buried here had to apply to the city fathers, wait for a vote to be taken, and pay an additional fee if approved. These restrictions were removed in 2000. In June 2019 an additional section of thirty-two plots was set aside for magicians. The cemetery has become a pilgrimage site for magicians who visit to perform Broken Wand Ceremonies and place magic-related items at the unique headstones of the more than forty magicians interred here by 2024.