Cemetery exodus from San Francisco

The gold rush was on. It was 1849 and it seemed the whole world was rushing to San Francisco. Many people only stopped long enough in the bustling town beside the Bay to outfit themselves for the gold fields. Life was fast and furious and any pause could mean the difference between getting filthy rich in the Sacramento gold fields or just getting dirty and going home broke.

And there were some who didn’t leave San Francisco at all. Disease and starvation singled out the unfortunate. Or you could come to a more colorful demise in one of the many bars or bordellos of the City. Life was uncertain. Death was for sure, but a resting place was not necessarily forever.

The first reality for San Francisco was that the dead needed to be buried. The Spanish had established a cemetery next to Mission Dolores, but the demand for burial space prior to the coming of the 49’ers was small as the population of Spanish in the area had never been more than a few hundred since the Mission was established in the 1770s. Now, however, tens of thousands were passing through the area every year and locations had to be found for burying the dead.

A number of other sites had been used before 1850. Most had only a few burials, such as: Powell Street Graveyard; Russian Hill Cemetery; Bush Street Cemetery; First Street Cemetery; Rincon Hill Cemetery by the U.S. marine hospital; St. Vincent Cemetery; Emanuel Hart Jewish Cemetery; Home of Peace; as well as Hebrew Cemetery.

But the increasing numbers of dead required more room. An informal burial area was started in the North Beach area between Filbert, Greenwich at Powell Street (site near North Beach Playground) where sheep had grazed. Passersby began complaining of odor and it wasn’t from the sheep. The burials were haphazard and non-standard, and the site was closed before March 1850 when a new site in the sand dunes was opened by Market between McAllister and Larkin Streets. This 13-acre triangle site was ideal at the time. It was far from the dense downtown developments and far enough from the living to mitigate the odor problem that had plagued the North Beach site. The City’s population was exploding, however, and after 9,000 burials, it was ordered closed in 1860. The site was developed as the City Hall complex over the next few years.

The next move was thought to be an adequate distance from the westward movement of the housing and city businesses. The area chosen lay to the north-west of the City and between 33rd and 48 avenues, near Pt. Lobos. It was named City Cemetery (Golden Gate Cemetery) and opened in 1870. Some burial space was relinquished for paupers and some of the areas became utilized exclusively for various ethnic groups such as the French, Germans, Italians, Jews, and Chinese. Once again the massive area set aside for burial met opposition from the public. It was rumored that the vapors from the graves caused diseases of the throat and other body parts. Demand for its removal again surfaced and by Jan. 1, 1898 further burials were forbidden there. The bodies were to be removed within six months. Many were not removed, however. By 1909, the area was made into a city park, and in 1924 the Palace of the Legion of Honor was constructed on the grounds. The Lincoln Park Municipal Golf Course occupies much of the former City Cemetery.

Private cemeteries were also developed throughout the western area of San Francisco starting in 1864 when the Lone Mountain Cemetery was dedicated. This was placed one-half mile north of Lone Mountain at California, Euclid, Parker and Cemetery avenues. The name of the eastern street, Cemetery, has been changed to Presidio Avenue. The private cemeteries were developed as if they were parks with many trees, flower beds and benches on which to sit and remember the departed and contemplate the meaning of life. The private cemeteries were very opulent and attracted thousands for special occasions such as the Grand Army of the Republic festivities on Memorial Day in 1909. Due to the sad sound of the original name, the Lone Mountain cemetery was renamed Laurel Hill Cemetery in 1867. It became the showcase for the city and had 20 miles of winding paths and streets. Between 1940 and 1945, at least 35,000 bodies had been removed from Laurel Hill Cemetery to Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma. In 1961, the Laurel Hill Cemetery area was declared a California Registered Historical Landmark No. 760.

As early as 1887, 25 acres of potato-farm land had been purchased by the Catholic church to insure a burial site outside of San Francisco. The writing was on the wall for the banning of human burial in San Francisco and astute people were beginning to read it.

The vast complex of public and private cemeteries throughout San Francisco would eventually comprise between 60 and 70 blocks of prime land. This realization astonished the City Fathers of San Francisco and they passed a law that would forbid human burials within the City after Aug. 1, 1901.

In 1860, the Catholic Church bought land for the Calvary Cemetery that was started on 49.2 acres of land between Gary and Turk in the Western Addition of San Francisco. In 1913, Ewing Field was built to the west for the Seal’s baseball team. Due to the cold and the fog, the team played only one year at the field. It was razed in 1925 and homes built. Between 1939 and 1941, approximately 55,000 bodies were moved from Calvary to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.

In 1864, the Masonic Cemetery was started on 30 acres at Turk, Fulton, Parker and Masonic streets. The University of San Francisco’s main campus is on the site now. Emperor Norton of San Francisco fame was buried there in 1880. In the 1930s, 20,000 remains were removed to the Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma. Even the Emperor had to relocate.

In 1865, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows began interring bodies on a 167-acre site by Arguello, Geary, Stanyon, Anza, Parker and Turk. In 1903 they bought 47 acres in Colma and founded a cemetery that was eventually named Greenlawn Cemetery.

There are still some souls who linger on in San Francisco. Their remains can be visited at the Presidio and Mission Dolores. More than 1 million other souls are resting now in the cemeteries in the town of Colma.