On a bluff battered by harsh winds and blistered by sunny blue skies lies a simple graveyard.It's not unlike the thousands of final resting spaces that dot the vast western prairies, rest inside the hogback, or nestle unseen in the mountains.

Usually they're found on a hill, surrounded by an iron fence which encloses a few withered trees and barren shrubs, their simple, weathered markers attesting to the lives of those who lived in leaner times.

The cars that whistle by on nearby Wadsworth are filled with occupants hurrying toward Lockheed Martin.Nearby, hundreds of golf carts sit in a large compound awaiting the arrival of spring. Multi-million dollar homes dot a new golf course catering to those who can afford hefty green fees which would have been more than a month's pay for those buried long ago under Lehow Cemetery's rock and sand.

Few know the cemetery is there, although it's just a few hundred yards from the sprawling aerospace campus and within a mile of affluent Ravenna and Roxborough communities.

In the late nineteenth century, the Lehow family lived on a ranch on the south side of the South Platte River, near the town of Kassler, where now only a few buildings still exist. Kassler, located at the base of Waterton Canyon, was a company town developed by the Denver Water Department for its filter plant workers.

The Lehows buried their infant, Charles Oscar Lehow, on a high rise near the town in 1870. His parents and other members of the Lehow family, buried in the late 1870s, surround his stone.

In 1937, the Lehows officially deeded the acreage as the burial place for "direct descendents and spouses of families who lived at the Kassler water filter plant, Waterton, and ranches within a one-mile radius of the cemetery prior to 1954."

During the past 130 years, Shellabargers, Myricks, Slocums, Swans, Woodwards, Van Cleaves, Riddles, Berens, Jenkins, Mitchells, and Wogans were buried there.Ten graves are nameless including one, which says, "Baby" and another that reads: "Man from Willard Filters."

One of the unmarked spaces is rumored to belong to a horse thief who was hanged nearby and then buried there.Some of the graves are of those who died in the flu epidemic in the early twentieth century.Still others were veterans killed in the European, Korean and Vietnam wars.

Sylvia Berens Hill, who grew up in the Kassler/Roxborough area and whose parents are buried there, is the chairwoman of the small board that oversees the care of the cemetery.She and her husband, Leonard, maintain the records, ensure the cemetery is cared for, and that the flag is raised on Memorial Day.

Opening a notebook filled with information about the cemetery, Sylvia points out a surveyed drawing showing 1536 lots.With only a few people buried there each year, fewer than a hundred plots are occupied.

"I don't think we'll ever use them all," she says.

Though the grounds will likey never be filled by early settlers' descendents, the cemetery will remain in clear view of Lockheed Martin's Waterton plant as a testimony to those first residents and the area's rural past.