Cave Hill Cemetery is a beautiful community jewel located in Louisville.

It's the final resting place for everyone from Colonel Harland Sanders to Muhammad Ali.

A national program you'll be able to watch right here on KCET has given the cemetery a lofty title.

They've named it one of the best in the world.

Our Chip Polston had a chance to meet up with Cave Hill's president and CEO to learn more.

First opened in Louisville in 1848.

Cave Hill Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 120,000 souls.

Now, lots of adjectives have been used to describe the absolute beauty of the facility.

But it now has a new title, one of the world's greatest cemeteries, and it's being featured on an upcoming national show that you'll be able to watch right here on Katie.

By the same name, Gwen Mooney is president and CEO of Cave Hill Cemetery.

Gwen, thanks so much for being with us today.

Thank you for having me.

So what's it like when you get that phone call or email saying we think you're one of the world's greatest cemeteries?

Well, I actually got an email from Roberta Mighty, the producer of World's Greatest Cemeteries, and it was quite a lengthy email, and he clearly had done a lot of homework.

And what was so interesting is he shared that he didn't really know about Cave Hill Cemetery until he started this series.

And people kept writing in and responding to him that he needed to come to Louisville and that he needed to come see Cave Hill Cemetery.

So it was View or a response that brought him to us.

So of course, the letter intrigued me and I called him.

I responded immediately.

And I think the next day he had a conversation with him and then we started booking his trip and that that was it.

He came last summer and and it went from just having that conversation in his letter to him visiting with us for a couple of days.

And when he was there, the grounds, as always, were absolutely spectacular.

And it's one of the things that he really talks about a lot in the show.

What's the back end of that?

What does it take from your all's perspective?

Drilling.

Maintain that amazing look out there.

Oh, my gosh.

That the the background behind that.

We have 74 employees at Cape Hill Cemetery.

Most of those employees are gardeners.

We have two arborists, licensed arborists.

We have horticulturists we have landscapers.

So quite a team to to do that.

And then the cemetery is divided up into gardening quadrants.

So we haven't had gardeners that oversee all of the different quadrants of Cape Hill Cemetery.

And then they have assistant gardeners working under them.

So there is a lot involved.

Well, and you can tell, but because it just it's a park like setting that is just absolutely beautiful.

Yes.

Now, when you first pull in, there's I believe it's a green line and a white line that you first encounter.

What are those lines to and what will they take you to go explore?

So when you first enter Capel Cemetery, whether you come in off the Grinstead gate or you come off of the Broadway Baxter Gate, the white line is basically going to take you right down to the administration building, and then it's going to take you down to the Grinstead gate so you can go gate to gate.

But on your way off to the right, there's now a green line.

And the green line takes you right to Muhammad Ali's grave.

And if you continue on the white line past the Grinstead gate, you're going to run into a yellow line.

And the yellow line takes you directly to Colonel Sanders.

And the reason for those two lines, that those are the two most popular.

Those are visited the most frequently.

And along those lines, I know in the year or so after the Ali burial there took place, the website TripAdvisor that tells people about places you want to go check out in a particular city.

Had Churchill Downs ranked number one.

Cave Hill Cemetery was ranked number two on that list.

What was that like to have that level of of intense interest in the facility there?

It was intense and what happened is we immediately partnered with the Ali Center and we partnered with the Louisville Tourism Group.

And what happened right away, we put a billboard up at the airport.

So all people traveling through the Muhammad Ali Airport, as you go to baggage claim, you see the billboard that is featuring Cave Hill Cemetery, the Ali Center and the Louisville tourism.

So people were seeing that just coming to baggage claim and they were just getting in the Uber, getting in the lift in before they were going to their destination.

The reason why they were here for this in the city, they were just going straight to Kate Hill Cemetery.

So our security team was meeting lifts and Ubers on a frequent basis to the point where these drivers didn't even need to be told where to go any longer.

They just knew how to get straight to Muhammad Ali's grave.

Wow.

But thousands of visitors on the weekends at the beginning, hundreds daily.

And we still have, you know, probably anywhere from 50 to 75 visitors on a Saturday and a Sunday and maybe 20 to 30 per day.

Wow.

Well, Cahill really is a remarkable facility and we look very forward to viewers learning more about it here very quickly.

So looking forward to that.

Gwen Mooney with Cave Hill Cemetery.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Renay, back to you.

Thank you, Chip.

Appreciate you.

You can catch World's Greatest Cemeteries featuring Louisville's Cave Hill on Sunday, April 23rd, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time and again Wednesday, April 26th at 5 p.m. Eastern Time right here on KCET.