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Tony Durm of Marietta has either walked or driven by Mound Cemetery on Fifth Street hundreds of times, but in recent years a disturbing sight caught his eye.

"As I looked at the fence around the cemetery, I thought, 'Wow, this is really surprising, the condition of it,'" said Durm, a professional engineer.

Rust is steadily replacing the sound metal installed there 77 years ago. Both cemetery and fence are on the National Register of Historic Places.

"There are few more important historical sites in Marietta than this one," Durm said of the cemetery.

Originally installed in 1931, replacing a wooden picket fence, the black iron fence is in serious need of restoration, according to Jean Yost, president of the local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).

"We're looking at 100 percent restoration of more than 2,000 feet of fencing on all four sides of the cemetery," he said. "It's too far gone just to paint it or repair a few bad sections."

Working with the city of Marietta, Washington County Historical Society Mound Cemetery committee, Daughters of the American Revolution and others, the SAR's goal is completion of the project by July 4, 2009.

Bids are expected to be accepted by the end of January for the project, which will be done in sections, Yost said. He is working with Marietta City Council members to move the program forward.

"We're not trying to make a new fence, but restore and rehabilitate what we have," Durm said. "Once a section is taken out, it will be sandblasted and cleaned, replacing any sections too damaged to be painted over."

Durm is one of a number of professional volunteers contributing expertise.

The project is estimated at $150,000 and will be funded through the city's inheritance tax and bequests by residents, Yost said.

Kurt Ludwig, a Fifth Street resident who lives across from the cemetery and is a member of the historical society's Mound Cemetery committee, said the group is an advocate for the cemetery.

"If you study history, you find this fence is absolutely critical to the cemetery and to preservation of (the) 'Conus' Mound at the center of the cemetery," Ludwig said. "Nothing will survive without the fence."

Once called "Mound Square," the cemetery covers an entire city block and is at the heart of Marietta's historic residential district. It ties directly into the Revolutionary War and to the foundations of America, Ludwig said.