San Fernando Cemetery

More than six hundred people are buried here and thirteen headstones are left. Charles Maclay set aside forty acres for a burying ground in 1874 when he filed the township of San Fernando, and the first recorded burial came in 1889 — which puts the plaque's early 1800s off by most of a century. The land was sold away in pieces down to 3.8 acres. The city, the county and the state each declined to take the place on, so volunteers have held it since 1958. A radar survey in 2010 found 214 graves.

What the plaque says

This Cemetery, earlier known as Morningside Cemetery, is the oldest non-sectarian cemetery in San Fernando Valley. It was used from the early 1800's until 1939. It was legally abandoned in 1959. In this same year Mrs. Nellis S. Noble donated the site in memory of the pioneers of San Fernando as a Pioneer Memorial Park.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 20 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Santa Monica Pier — 22 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 25 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• The Cascades — 2.8 mi
• Mission San Fernando Rey de España — 3.3 mi
• Brand Park (Memory Garden) — 3.5 mi
• Rómulo Pico Adobe (Ranchito Rómulo) — 3.7 mi