Tag: graveyards

15th Annual Memorial Day Ceremony in National City.

This afternoon the 15th Annual Memorial Day Ceremony was held in Lincoln Acres, a small community encompassed by National City.

People from all over, feeling gratitude for United States military members and those who made the ultimate sacrifice, gathered at La Vista Memorial Park. There we listened to the emotionally stirring words of keynote speakers, including several historians. The Memorial Day Ceremony honored 30 Civil War Veterans buried in the hilltop cemetery.

Before the ceremony began, people wandered about the grass, looking down at markers and small American flags. People mingling near the event stage talked, and when the bagpipes started, they slowly took their seats. I heard birds singing.

I sat in a spot with a limited view of the proceedings. I was unable to photograph the Rifle Salute and Taps performed in the distance by the 82nd Airborne Division San Diego Chapter.

The scheduled WWII era aircraft flyover was cancelled due to the thick overcast.

Here are some of the highlights:

Members of the 82nd Airborne Division San Diego Chapter assemble among flags by the La Vista Memorial Park pond.

Charles Rosenberg plays bagpipes before the ceremony begins.

The California Army National Guard advances the colors.

Sophia Hoffman, a recent contestant on hit television show The Voice, sang the National Anthem beautifully.

All stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and Invocation.

John Finch, retired US Navy Chief, read John A. Logan’s General Order No. 11, which called for a national day of remembrance for Civil War dead. It became the holiday Memorial Day.

Kathleen Winchester, President of the Sons and Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, pays tribute to Civil War Veteran Milford Phillips, who died in San Diego and is buried nearby.

Mark Carlson, author and military historian, reads the Gettysburg Address. …we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. He encouraged us to thank all Veterans and current service members.

National City Mayor Ron Morrison recalls how Ely S. Parker, a Native American, who encountered mid-19th century bigotry, eventually rose to become adjutant and secretary to General Ulysses S. Grant.

National City and San Diego County dignitaries prepare to deliver a special recognition.

Tom McBride, 101 years old, is honored. He flew Corsairs with VMF-1 off the USS Bennington during World War II.

Dan Sutton, history teacher at West Hills High School, also gave a speech. (That’s him in my very first photograph.) He explained that many people from San Diego traveled east to fight in the Civil War. He also presented this display, which includes the 70 pounds of equipment, food and clothing a Union soldier would carry.

After the speeches a free lunch was provided to everyone. Good old American hot dogs. Many families were at the ceremony.

Flags mark the final resting places of those who fought for their country.

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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Life and death at the San Diego Presidio.

Spain’s first outpost in Southern California, the 1769 Royal Presidio of San Diego, is long gone. Its ruins are buried on Presidio Hill just beneath the Junípero Serra Museum. Grassy mounds and bits of old brick can still be found as one walks about.

This historical site is a place where very diverse stories were lived. It’s a place were many were buried when life finally ended.

At the corner of the main visitor’s parking lot one can find an historical marker. On the rear of a nearby kiosk is a faded Burial Register.

SAN DIEGO PRESIDIO SITE

SOLDIERS, SAILOR, INDIANS, AND FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES FROM NEW SPAIN OCCUPIED THE LAND AT PRESIDIO HILL ON MAY 17, 1769 AS A MILITARY OUTPOST. TWO MONTHS LATER FR. JUNIPERO SERRA ESTABLISHED THE FIRST SAN DIEGO MISSION ON PRESIDIO HILL. OFFICIALLY PROCLAIMED A SPANISH PRESIDIO ON JANUARY 1, 1774, THE FORTRESS WAS LATER OCCUPIED BY A SUCCESSION OF MEXICAN FORCES. THE PRESIDIO WAS ABANDONED IN 1837 AFTER SAN DIEGO BECAME A PUEBLO.

CALIFORNIA REGISTERED HISTORICAL LAND MARK NO. 59

HERE, IN THIS PARK, LIE THE REMAINS OF THE ORIGINAL RESIDENTS OF THE PRESIDIO, BOTH NATIVE AND IMMIGRANTS, OF THIS ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT THAT LATER BECAME THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO. BELOW IS A LIST OF THE INDIVIDUALS WHO HELPED CREATE THE COMMUNITY, LIVED THEIR LIVES HERE, AND WERE BURIED IN THESE PRESIDIO GROUNDS. THESE PEOPLE CAME FROM AND REPRESENT PLACES ALL OVER THE WORLD. IMPORTANTLY, THEIR LIVES WERE DEDICATED TO HELP BUILD THIS COMMUNITY.

Source: The Catholic Church Burial Register

During past walks, I’ve photographed other historical plaques and signs on Presidio Hill. See many of them here and here.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Día de los Muertos at El Campo Santo.

At sundown this evening there will be a Día de los Muertos candlelight procession through Old Town. Those participating will end at San Diego’s old El Campo Santo cemetery, where many of our city’s earliest residents are buried.

This afternoon the small cemetery had already been decorated for Día de los Muertos.

A colorful altar stands near the entrance, just beyond the El Campo Santo historical marker. According to one sign I noticed, the Community Altar is by the Descendants of Old Town San Diego.

Marigolds and paper sugar skulls decorate gravesites, and the names of deceased loved ones have been scrawled in chalk on the cemetery wall along San Diego Avenue.

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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.

You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Halloween fun from walks around San Diego!

Halloween is tomorrow!

In preparation, I’ve been taking Halloween-related photos in the past couple weeks during my walks around San Diego.

There are some really good displays out there!

Please enjoy the following spooky or perhaps not-so-spooky photographs…

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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.

You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Evil clowns and ghouls arrive in Balboa Park!

Visitors to Balboa Park should be warned that an army of evil creatures is gathering in the southwest corner of the park, along what is known as The Haunted Trail.

Every October grisly ghouls, bloody demons and creepy clowns assemble under the trees to scare thrill-seekers in the dark of night.

Perhaps it all has something to do with the approach of Halloween.

Beware!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Mass grave seen from San Diego trolley.

Ride the San Diego Trolley’s Orange Line through Mt. Hope Cemetery and you might observe something strange. A group of collected headstones is set in concrete just south of the tracks.

This very unusual memorial is the site of a mass grave–a “grave” filled with discarded gravestones!

Back in the 1980s when the trolley line was new, passengers noticed that many tombstones had been dumped in a ravine at Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Earlier, in the 1970s, the City of San Diego had removed about 800 tombstones from old Calvary Cemetery in Mission Hills and callously thrown them into this ravine. Unbelievable, right?

Today the peculiar memorial you see in the above photograph recalls an infamous moment in our city’s history.

You can learn more about how old Calvary Cemetery was converted into today’s Pioneer Park in Mission Hills by clicking here.

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Scary bites of Halloween at the Donut Bar!

One of my favorite haunts in downtown San Diego is the Donut Bar.

This morning I found Halloween treats that are deliciously scary!

Grave Digger! Skull Cake! Boo Boston Creme!

A Triple Chocolate Threat with tiny sprinkled Bat-o’-lanterns is what my ravenous fangs sank into!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Gravestones at Pioneer Park in Mission Hills.

Pioneer Park is a city park in Mission Hills that’s popular with neighborhood families and children. It features a playground, green grass, many shady trees . . . and well over a thousand unseen graves. If you don’t wander into the southeast corner of the park, you might never know it’s also a cemetery.

Pioneer Park was originally Calvary Cemetery. The Catholic cemetery was established in the 1870s, then converted a century later into a Mission Hills community park. According to this article: “All the 800-odd memorial markers were taken away in the 1970s except for a line of tombstones left on the park’s edge. Left as a memorial, they’re still there…” Sadly, the gravestones that had been removed were callously dumped by those then living into a ravine at distant Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Many of San Diego’s earliest residents remain buried under the grass at Pioneer Park. Even after the passage of many years, surviving gravestones show historically important names like Cave Johnson Couts and Father Antonio Ubach. But all of the names are gradually fading away. Time does that.

Six nearby plaques list the names of those who are interred in the park, and it is said there might be many more.

On any given day, life goes on cheerfully above the grass. And beneath it lie the remains of those who once lived, dreamed, toiled and loved exactly like you and me.

Here are some photographs, to provoke thought, and to help preserve a little history…

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You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

A spring walk through Hillcrest and Mission Hills.

Spring has arrived in the window of Mission Hills Automotive.

Yesterday I went for a long, very pleasant springtime walk. These photographs represent my journey through the west part of Hillcrest, then through an interesting slice of Mission Hills.

I started inside Hillcrest, headed west down Washington Street, took a momentary detour to Fort Stockton Drive, then headed back down Washington Place to historic (and some say haunted) Pioneer Park, which I will blog about in a day or two. I then hiked down sloping Mission Hills Canyon along the green, seemingly little known Robyn’s Egg Trail, which I also plan to blog about. Eventually I came out near San Diego Avenue, southeast of Old Town.

Come along and read the captions to get a taste…

A flying unicorn on a fence by Copper Top Coffee and Donuts in Hillcrest.
Lovers in a window at Urban Fusion Decor.
Springtime in a window at VCA Hillcrest Animal Hospital.
A cool mural on the side of Dame and Dapper Barber Shop.
One of the bird sculptures along Washington Avenue’s median. I believe the sculptures were a project of the Mission Hills Garden Club.
Mysterious tile artwork on the corner of a building.
Banner thanks cool teachers at St. Vincent de Paul School.
Interesting old building is home of the Ibis Market.
Mission Hills homeowners are hoping to have acorn-style street lamps installed, to create a more charming and historic look.
One of many beautiful old houses I passed in Mission Hills. I believe this one is a Craftsman.
Gravestones line a corner of Pioneer Park, which was built over a cemetery where many early residents of San Diego remain buried.
Heading down green Mission Hills Canyon on a sunny spring day. The Robyn’s Egg Trail is rough and requires careful navigation in spots. Along its approximately half mile length I encountered one walker with a dog and one homeless person.
Bright flowers along the path.
A happy kitty face greets me as I arrive at San Diego Avenue!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

A downtown burial site at Dead Men’s Point?

At the south end of Pacific Highway, a short distance from Seaport Village, an historical marker can be observed by the sidewalk. In 1954 it was placed adjacent to the old San Diego Police Headquarters, which today is home to the shops and eateries of The Headquarters.

The marker reads:

LA PUNTA
DE LOS MUERTOS
(DEAD MEN’S POINT)
BURIAL SITE OF SAILORS AND MARINES IN 1782
WHEN SAN DIEGO BAY WAS SURVEYED & CHARTED
BY DON JUAN PANTOJA Y ARRIAGA, PILOT, AND
DON JOSE TOVAR, MATE, OF THE ROYAL FRIGATES
“LA PRINCESA” AND “LA FAVORITA” UNDER
COMMAND OF DON AGUSTIN DE ECHEVERRIA.
STATE REGISTERED LANDMARK NO. 57
MARKER PLACED BY SAN DIEGO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
AND THE HISTORICAL MARKERS COMMITTEE
ERECTED 1954

But according to The Journal of San Diego History’s article A Monument to an Event that Never Happened, this marker is wildly inaccurate! There is no burial site and no one died on the Pantoja voyage. And “dead men” probably refers to pine logs! Huh?

To read the article, click here!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!