KTRK-13 is running an AP story on the continued fascination with Howard Hughes and his Houston gravesite:
Nearly three decades after his death April 5, 1976 on a plane from Acapulco, Mexico, to his native Houston, Hughes’ grave at the base of a hill at an edge of Houston’s 133-year-old Glenwood Cemetery remains a popular tourist site.
“People come in from out of town and come by here,” said a cemetery official, who asked that his name not be disclosed. “It’s a regular occurrence.”
[snip]
Legend has it the granite tombstone, which carries the names and dates of births and deaths of Hughes and his parents, was commissioned by Hughes to be modeled after a key fob his father used to carry. The site, while distinctive, does not prominently display the Hughes name and is dwarfed by significantly more grandiose memorials elsewhere in the sprawling cemetery, where some 22,000 people are buried.
Cemetery officials are polite about directing visitors, acknowledging Hughes’ presence but offering little else except to say seasonal flowers are planted regularly at the grave as part of special maintenance agreements provided to that site and others.
Hughes, born Christmas Eve 1905, was 72 when he died. An autopsy determined chronic renal disease as the cause of death. He was buried in what in 1976 was an $8,100 casket and $2,100 vault, according to probate court documents.
I would guess the new movie “The Aviator,” will further add to the interest in Hughes.
