Historic rural cemetery in Alameda County
The Mountain View Cemetery is a 226-acre (91 ha)
rural cemetery in
Oakland, California , United States. It was established in 1863 by a group of East Bay
pioneers under the California Rural Cemetery Act of 1859. The association they formed still operates the cemetery today. Mountain View was designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted , the
landscape architect who also designed
New York City 's
Central Park and much of
UC Berkeley and
Stanford University .
Many of
California 's important historical figures, drawn by Olmsted's reputation, are buried here. There are many grandiose
crypts in tribute to the wealthy, especially along the ridge section with a view across the Bay to the San Francisco skyline, known as "Millionaires' Row".
[1] Because of this, and its beautiful setting, the cemetery is a tourist draw. Tours led by
docents began in 1970.
[2]
Design
Panoramic view from the rear of the cemetery, looking out across the
San Francisco Bay
Olmsted's intent was to create a space that would express a harmony between humankind and the natural setting. In the view of 19th century
English and
American
romantics , park-like cemeteries, such as Mountain View, represented the peace of nature, to which humanity's soul returns. Olmsted, drawing upon the concepts of
American Transcendentalism , integrated Parisian grand monuments and broad avenues.
Adjoining Mountain View Cemetery is
Saint Mary Cemetery and the
Chapel of the Chimes mausoleum and columbarium.
Notable burials
View of the cemetery from Charles Crocker's tomb
There are many notable people interred in Mountain View; many are local figures in California history, but others have achieved wider fame.
[3]
Politicians and government officials
Washington Bartlett ,
Mayor of San Francisco (1882–1884),
Governor of California (1887)
Coles Bashford ,
Governor of Wisconsin and
Arizona Territory politician
Leonard W. Buck , rancher, California State Senator.
Warren B. English ,
US Representative (D) California
John B. Felton , Mayor of Oakland (1869–70)
William M. Gwin , one of California's first
U.S. Senators
Henry H. Haight , Governor of California (1867–71)
William Knowland , U.S. Senator, Publisher,
Oakland Tribune
Adolphus Frederic St. Sure , Federal Judge
Samuel Merritt , early
Mayor of Oakland
[1]
[2]
Romualdo Pacheco , Governor of California (1875)
George Pardee , Governor of California (1903–1907)
[2]
George C. Perkins , Governor of California (1880–1883); U.S. Senator (1893–1915).
Richard P. Hammond ,
Speaker of the California State Assembly (January - May 1852) and former
U.S. Army
Major
Industrialists and business people
The statue above
Domingo Ghirardelli 's mausoleum.
The
Crocker mausoleum on Millionaire's Row
Warren A. Bechtel , industrialist, founder of the
Bechtel company
[4]
Anthony Chabot , father of
hydraulic mining and benefactor of
Chabot Space & Science Center
[2]
Charles Crocker , railroad magnate, banker
[2]
William E. Dargie , Owner, Oakland Tribune
J. A. Folger , founder of
Folgers Coffee
[1]
Peter Folger , American coffee heir, socialite
Domingo Ghirardelli , namesake of the
Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
[1]
Henry J. Kaiser , father of modern American
shipbuilding
[5]
Ingemar Henry Lundquist , mechanical engineer, and inventor of over the wire
balloon angioplasty
Joe Shoong ,
Chinese immigrant and founder of the
National Dollar Stores chain
[2]
Francis Marion Smith , the "
Borax King"
[2]
Charles Miner Goodall , Co-Founder of the
Pacific Coast Steamship Company
Lewis Bradbury , a gold-mining millionaire who owned the Tajo Mine in Mexico, and later became a real estate developer
Military
Thomas Hill's grave marker
The Miller Crypt pyramid.
Arts and culture
Lucy Adeline Briggs Cole Rawson Peckinpah Smallman , botanical artist and plant collector.
Leandro Campanari , Italian-American violinist, conductor, composer and music teacher.
Herbert A. Collins , landscape and portrait artist
Ina Coolbrith , California's first
poet laureate
Andre Hicks (aka
Mac Dre ), Bay Area rapper, record label owner, and producer
[1]
[5]
Thomas Hill , artist
William Keith , California landscape artist
Bernard Maybeck , architect
[2]
Julia Morgan , architect
[1]
[2]
Frank Norris , author
[2]
Floyd Salas , author
Isabel Seal Stovel , organizers of the City of San Francisco Music Week
Bella French Swisher (1837–1893), writer
Douglas Tilden ,
sculptor
Local history
David D. Colton , vice president of the
Southern Pacific Railroad , namesake of the city of
Colton, California
Henry Durant , first president of the
University of California, Berkeley
[2]
Nannie S. Brown Kramer , organizer, president and membership director of the Oakland Women's City Club
[6]
Virginia Prentiss , African-American midwife and nanny to
Jack London
Jane K. Sather , donor of
Sather Gate and
Sather Tower to the University of California, Berkeley
Francis K. Shattuck , prominent in the politics and early development of Alameda County, Oakland and Berkeley
William T. Shorey ,
African-American
whaling captain and Oakland civic leader
[2]
John Swett , founder of the California Public School System
Charles Lee Tilden , namesake of
Tilden Regional Park
Other
David Hewes burial vault
Volney V. Ashford , exiled revolutionary
Cloe Annette Buckel , one of the first female doctors in California
Glenn Burke , first openly gay player in
Major League Baseball
[1]
Henry D. Cogswell , dentist and
temperance movement crusader
[2]
Marcus Foster , first Black Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, first victim of the
Symbionese Liberation Army
Eliza Nelson Fryer , educator and missionary
David Hewes , who provided the "
Golden Spike "
Bobby Hutton , first treasurer of the
Black Panther Party
Fred Korematsu , challenged
Executive Order 9066 in the landmark Supreme Court case
Korematsu v. United States
[5]
Ike Lassiter , football player
Joseph LeConte , co-founder of the
Sierra Club
Ernie Lombardi ,
Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player
John Norton Pomeroy , law professor at
Hastings College of the Law
Elizabeth Short , unsolved Hollywood murder victim known as the
Black Dahlia
[1]
[5]
There is one
British Commonwealth war grave , of Pilot Officer James Raymond Lippi, an American born member of the
Royal Canadian Air Force , who died in 1942.
[7] Lippi was born in
Santa Cruz, California and went to Canada to enlist for
World War II
Lee Ya-Ching , China's First Lady of Flight, first female pilot graduated from
Geneve-Cointrin (Switzerland) and from
Boeing School of Aeronautics .
Zedekiah Johnson Purnell (1813–1882), was an African-American activist, and businessman
[8]
In popular culture
Mountain View Cemetery is featured prominently in the 2018 film
Blindspotting .
Daveed Diggs 's character is shown going there for morning runs, and an important scene happens in the cemetery where the character imagines Black victims of
police brutality standing over the graves.
[9]
In The Big Wake-Up , a 2009 crime novel by
Mark Coggins , the main character in the book, a detective named August Riordan, discovers that Argentine first lady
Eva Perón is not at rest in the Duarte family tomb in
La Recoleta Cemetery , Buenos Aires, but is actually buried in Mountain View Cemetery.
[10]
References
^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h Andrew Chamings (March 2, 2020).
"From the Black Dahlia to Mac Dre: The bodies of Mountain View" . San Francisco Chronicle .
^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m Abby Cohn (January 5, 2001).
"They're 6 Feet Under, But Pioneers Draw Crowds to Oakland" . San Francisco Chronicle .
^
"Famous People at Mountain View Cemetery - Comprehensive List" . Mountain View Cemetery. Archived from
the original on December 10, 2005.
^
"Bechtel" .
The Los Angeles Times . 1933-09-18. p. 12. Retrieved 2022-09-13 – via
Newspapers.com .
^
a
b
c
d Matthews, Allen (December 7, 2020).
"Beloved Oakland cemetery, resting place of Kaiser, Ghirardelli and Mac Dre, still off-limits to visitors" . San Francisco Chronicle .
^ Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A. (1928).
Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America . p. 59. Retrieved 8 August 2017 . This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain .
^
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2719634/LIPPI,%20JAMES%20RAYMOND CWGC Casualty Record.
^
"California, Oakland, Mountain View Cemetery Records, 1857–1973, Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland; FHL microfilm 008266227" .
FamilySearch .
^
" 'Blindspotting' is a Spot-On Portrait of an Oakland in Flux" . KQED . 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2018-09-05 .
^
"Evita Plays Oakland?" . Southern Cone Travel . 2010-04-20. Retrieved 2020-03-17 .
External links