It’s time to rededicate Waco’s most historical burial grounds as a cemetery.

The Waco City Council should not expand Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum facilities into the old cemetery area now that it has become abundantly clear that the land most people thought was cleared of graves still contains many hundreds of bodies.

City Manager Larry Groth has already recommended that no more development be done on the Fort Fisher land next to the Ranger museum.

In an earlier action, the council approved $437,000 so American Archaeology could remove bodies unearthed while running utility lines to two new buildings.

In addition, the council Tuesday allocated another $280,000 for another archaeological firm, PBS&J of Austin, to exhume and relocate graves along the utility line.

The attempt to bring utilities to these two buildings has become extraordinarily expensive.

American Archaeology discovered 160 bodies along a utility line before it was fired over deadline and staffing issues.

The head of the Texas Historical Commission’s archaeology division estimates that 200 more graves might be discovered along the utility line.

Most of the Fort Fisher Park site was used as one of Waco’s earliest burial grounds. It was used as a cemetery for more than 100 years before city officials obtained a court order in 1968 to relocate the old cemetery, which became Fort Fisher and home of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

After a 1968 public notice of plans to relocate the old cemetery drew no response, the city proceeded. It now appears to have been mostly the relocation of grave markers.

“Knowing what we know now, there’s not any sense of planning more construction in that area,” Groth said. “It should become part of First Street Cemetery.”

He’s right. Although the 35-acre site has been used for years as an RV park and for the annual Brazos River Festival, it now is apparent that a century’s worth of interred bodies still rests beneath the surface.

Councilman Randy Riggs agrees with Groth. “If graves are out there, we shouldn’t be building there. There are religious and moral issues here,” he said.

Additional expansion plans for the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum should be accomplished by expanding toward Interstate 35 or by replacing the current one-story museum with a multistory building.

The Texas Historical Commission still considers the Fort Fisher site to be a cemetery despite the removal of the gravestones. The council should rededicate the undeveloped part of Fort Fisher Park as a cemetery.

The council also should remain committed to helping Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum with future expansion plans as well as extending Waco’s river walk past the museum.