The name Orange Risdon ought to sound familiar to you if you live in Saline. He's the “Founding Father of Saline” and is buried in the city's Oakwood Cemetery.

Recently, Saline Mayor Gretchen Driskell asked a committee to look into expansion plans for the cemetery, which included the possibility of buying land on Monroe Street near the cemetery, or expanding the grave sites on undeveloped land inside the cemetery fence.

Now, the committee and the Saline City Council have voted to keep the cemetery size the same but expand the burial space within the existing boundaries and install an alcove area for ashes in the cemetery’s mausoleum. Work is planned to start this summer.

The 10-acre site is home to a lot of history.

According to Wayne Clements of the >Saline Area Historical Society, “Saline’s first permanent settler was Leonard Miller in 1826, followed closely by Risdon, who surveyed Saline Village in 1832 along with Detroit to Chicago Road and many other Michigan buildings and lands.”

Clements said Risdon is buried on the south end of the cemetery, while the site of his original homestead is on the north side of the cemetery.

That homestead area has been left open, and Clements said he hopes that one day a memorial marker will be erected there.

“His house used to sit on the hill opposite Mills Drive on the highest point,” Clements said, in addition, several of Risdon’s relatives are buried in Saline’s only cemetery.

In fact, it was Risdon who named Saline, meaning salt, after the river of the same name, according to Agnes Dikeman, who researched the family’s roots.

The decision to expand the cemetery only inside its existing boundaries was "data-driven," said Councilman Pat Ivy, who chaired the committee.

The committee thought there was an overabundance of available burial spaces in the area There are 21 cemeteries within a 25-mile radius of Saline, which has more than 362,100 plots available.

Plus, the trend today, according to the committee's report, is to opt for cremation rather then full burial.

“The majority of the committee were not in favor of expanding the cemetery by purchasing more land,” according to the report.

In a survey of city residents, 28 percent said they didn’t know if the cemetery should be expanded or not.

The committee's proposal includes surveying for the addition of 12 single spaces and 44 double crypts below ground, the installation of about 80 single niches and 112 double niches above ground inside the mausoleum.

Currently, there are 28 double crypts, 16 single spaces and 14 cremation spaces available in the cemetery.

The committee also said the city could consider an above-ground structure to hold ashes south of the circular drive where the Risdon home once stood. It could also construct a memorial area with benches, plantings and other features that would not disturb the underground area of the founder’s home, the committee said.

Also planned is the replacement of a sidewalk along West Michigan Avenue and building a retaining wall between the sidewalk and the cemetery expansion area, according to the report.

The cemetery’s perpetual care fund has about $911,000 in it “that can be used to fund the expansion of the additional burial sites, with sales and interment fees paying” for both the expansion costs as well as additional funds to the cemetery, according to the report.

The plan is the result of a cemetery task force committee comprised of Todd Campbell, city manager; Dianne Hill, city clerk; Jackie Lindimore, deputy city clerk; Gary Roubal, city engineer; and Brian Marl and Patrick Ivy, both City Council members.

Lisa Allmendinger is a reporter with AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at lisaallmendinger@annarbor.com. For more Saline stories, visit our Saline page.