A small ‘graveyard town’ in San Mateo County, California has just one living person for every 1,000 deceased.
Known as the ‘City of the Dead’ Colma is home to approximately 1.5 million graves and just 1,507 living residents.
A staggering 73% of its territory is dedicated to cemeteries and many famous people were buried in Colma, including Wyatt Earp and Joe DiMaggio.
Gravestones are everywhere here, they are spread in smooth arcs over the rolling hills, like vines in a vineyard. Despite this, the people who live there love it with residents adopting the tongue-in-cheek phrase “It’s good to be alive in Colma.”
The sign that welcomes visitors to the town is made of granite instead of metal, and graveyards are officially known by locals as ‘memorial parks.’
The town’s worst traffic jams are caused by funeral processions, Colma residents evene receive warnings by automated phone alerts whenever a big procession is expected.
The quite peaceful town of roughly two miles became a burial ground around 100 years ago when San Francisco, located just 10 miles away, banned burials in the city in 1900 because city’s cemeteries were out of room and were considered a health hazard.
In an effort to conserve real estate San Francisco announced in 1912 that it would do more than ban burials. It would kick out the dead.
This prompted the removal of 150,000 bodies at a cost of $10 per grave and marker who were reburied in Colma which was mostly empty farmland prior. For those where no one paid the fee were reburied in mass graves and the markers were recycled in various San Francisco public works.
Gradually over the years more and more of San Francisco’s dead were laid to rest here. There are 16 cemeteries in Colma. The biggest of them are the Cypress Lawn and the Holy Cross Cemetery.
However, there is more to Colma than just cemeteries as in recent years the town has become more diversified, and a variety of retail businesses and automobile dealerships have opened here.
