The Catoosa County resident, now 81, said he found a green stone that looked like an huge emerald. He took it home, but his mama whipped him and made him take it back, he said. "That's the last time I went in there."

"Here's what I remember about it," Mr. [Ross Grant] said last week about the family grave site. "It was all pastureland, not grown up like it is now. I know that great-granddaddy William Lafayette Ross is buried there and his wife, Julia Ann Mahan Ross. Then two of their grandchildren are buried there with them, and some of my aunts and uncles."

"I started clearing out the land (in the cemetery) about five years ago, but the owner then stopped me," he said last week. "He was going to build houses on it."

"I think too many are being dozed out and built over," he said. "I don't think federal or state laws are doing enough to protect them."