Tripping Out to SoCal’s Oldest Family Graveyard
Ready for another brief tour of L.A.’s haunting past?
Off the beaten track, in the City of Industry, you’ll find a small but significant cemetery, known simply as El Campo Santo. Part of the six-acre Workman Temple Homestead Historical Park, the graveyard dates to 1855, and is the L.A. area’s first private burial ground. Originally, it was meant to hold the Workman, Rowland and Temple families along with their ranch workers, but through a twist of fate also became the final resting place of Pio Pico, California’s last Mexican governor, and his wife Maria Ygnacia.
As if visiting the graves of these notable Californios isn’t thrilling enough for die-hard history buffs, the site also boasts the last remaining example of decorative cast-iron fencing common to this region’s 19th Century bone yards — and perhaps a few other buried mysteries as well. Read more
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