Look at a map of the Far Southwest Side, where the neighborhoods of Beverly, Morgan Park, and Mount Greenwood meet, and you’ll see a rectangular-shaped hole. It’s Mount Greenwood Cemetery, a 79-acre graveyard that was never annexed to the City of Chicago and remains part of unincorporated Cook County.

The cemetery was established in 1879, when Chicago’s boundaries extended only as far south as 39th Street (now Pershing Road). When the Village of Mount Greenwood voted for annexation to the city in 1927, the cemetery didn’t come with it. “If you incorporate, you’re going to pay taxes for schools, parks,” explains Carol Flynn of the Ridge Historical Society in Beverly. “Those are amenities a cemetery’s ‘residents’ are not going to take advantage of.”

Even though the cemetery is not technically in the city, it still receives Chicago water and Chicago fire protection and has a 773 area code and a 606 ZIP code. But it relies on Cook County for policing. “I have a lot of underage drinking, kids causing trouble,” says Paula Everett, president and co-owner of the cemetery. “I call the district, they’ll say, ‘You’ve got to call the sheriff.’ ”

Send your questions about the Chicago area to emcclelland@chicagomag.com.