San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries

Digging into a forgotten past - and the dead left behind. San Francisco is famous for not having any cemeteries, but the claim isn't exactly what it seems. In the early 20th Century, the city relocated more than 150,000 graves to the nearby town of Colma to make way for a rapidly growing population. But an estimated fifty to sixty thousand burials were quietly built over and forgotten, only to resurface every time a new building project began. The dead still lie beneath some of...
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Digging into a forgotten past - and the dead left behind.
San Francisco is famous for not having any cemeteries, but the claim isn't exactly what it seems. In the early 20th Century, the city relocated more than 150,000 graves to the nearby town of Colma to make way for a rapidly growing population. But an estimated fifty to sixty thousand burials were quietly built over and forgotten, only to resurface every time a new building project began. The dead still lie beneath some of the city's most cherished destinations, including the Legion of Honor, United Nations Plaza, the Asian Art Museum and the University of San Francisco.
Join author Beth Winegarner as she maps the city's early burial grounds and brings back to life the dead who've been erased.