The City of Souls: San Francisco's Burial Ground

The City of Souls where San Francisco made it into it's own graveyard to save their landPhoto byphoto by www.curator135.com website

Memorial Day in Colma, California is always a special day of remembrance for many. It's also interesting to know how it all started and talk about the place that became the burial ground of San Franciscans.

The history of Colma is one of the most unique in the United States. Sometimes called the “city of souls”, or “the city of the silent”, Colma has only 1507 residents but has approximately 1.5 million gravesites in multiple cemeteries. Many of them are from San Francisco. Holy Cross is the oldest and largest Cemetery in “the city of cemeteries".

Colma Helps San Franciscans to Rest In Peace:

Colma used to be famous for boxing. The Mission St. Arena had several large fights including Jack Johnson's title fights in the early 1900's. Things changed though. In 1900, San Francisco businessmen and politicians started thinking of the future and their pocketbooks.

It was obvious that big things were ahead in the new century and San Francisco was becoming a powerful and larger city as time went on. And the one thing that would capture that power? Owning land. San Francisco passed a law in 1910 that they would no longer allow people to be buried in the city limits. It went even further evicting most of the cemeteries in San Francisco years later. From 1920-1941 approximately 150,000 were moved to nearby Colma where there was no limit to cemeteries.

Such notables to be buried in Colma are William Randolph Hearst, Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, Joe DiMaggio & Michael A. Healy U.S. Revenue Cutter Service Officer, and the first African-American to command a ship of the US Government.

Michael A. Healy United States Revenue Cutter Service Officer, and the first man of African-American descent to command a ship of the United States government.

You can't say that the people in Colma don't have a sense of humor. The city's motto is, “It's great to be alive in Colma”.