– June 13, 1907, Denver, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

) was a Korean independence activist and one of the first Korean immigrants to the U.S. state of Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

.

Life and death

Park first came to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1900 with Yi Gang, fifth son of Emperor Gojong; the two studied together at Roanoke College

Roanoke College

Roanoke College is an private, coeducational, four-year liberal-arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The college is located in Salem, Virginia, a suburban independent city adjacent to Roanoke, Virginia...

 in Salem

Salem, Virginia

Salem is an independent city in Virginia, USA, bordered by the city of Roanoke to the east but otherwise adjacent to Roanoke County. It is part of the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 24,802 according to 2010 U.S. Census...

, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. After his graduation, Park established a mining school in his homeland, but soon returned to North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, where he first went to Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 in August 1905 before coming to Colorado in January 1906. He rose to prominence as a local community leader there along with Yun Byeong-gu and his nephew Pak Yong-man, helping to organise Denver-area Koreans for the Korean independence movement

Korean independence movement

The Korean independence movement grew out of the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. After the Japanese surrendered, Korea became independent; that day is now an annual holiday called Gwangbokjeol in South Korea, and Chogukhaebangŭi nal in North Korea.-Background:In...

. He hoped to campaign for Korea's freedom at the 1908 Democratic National Convention

1908 Democratic National Convention

The 1908 Democratic National Convention was the quadrennial Democratic National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party. It took place from July 7 to July 10, 1908 at Denver Auditorium Arena in Denver, Colorado....

, but was killed under mysterious circumstances in a suspected assassination in 1907 and buried in an unmarked grave at Denver's Riverside Cemetery

Riverside Cemetery (Denver, Colorado)

Riverside Cemetery, established in 1876, is Denver, Colorado's oldest operating cemetery. More than 67,000 people are buried there, including 1,000 veterans.-Location and operation:...

, where he lay forgotten for almost a century.

Discovery of grave

In 2003, South Korean scholars doing research on immigration to the United States, having found records about Park in Korea, began to look through Denver cemetery records in an attempt to find him. After his burial site was identified, the local Korean American

Korean American

Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...

 association held a ceremony in October 2007, during which they erected a new $3,000 granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

headstone with a bilingual epitaph describing Park's life and accomplishments; 50 people attended the ceremony, including South Korean consul general Koo Bon-woo.