National Register of Historic Places #145
California Historical Landmark #874
No this is not a creppy cementary that I walked into, this place is actually located within the same address of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum and belonged to the Workman-Temple family. This site is walking distance from the actual museum and anyone can go in there and check it out without a guided tour. El Campo Santo is one of the oldest cemeteries in California, it contains the remains of the pioneering Workman and Temple families as well as Pío Pico, (the last governor of Alta California), and John A. Rowland who was part owner of Rancho La Puente along with Workman. The cemetery was iron gated and had a Gothic chapel as describe by the Homestead Museum brochure.
The Campo Santo (which means Cemetery in English) was established in 1855, when William Workman's brother died as he fell of a cliff trying to retrieve some cattle in Northern California during the gold rush. Soon after other Workman family members were buried
When the Workman family lost it all they even lost the cemetery. In 1917 when William Workman's grandson Walter Temple regained ownership of that land he was able to restore the cemetery. In 1921 he built a mausoleum (building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people) and moved the remains of his family inside.
He also transferred the remains of Pío Pico and his wife, Ygnacia Alvarado de Pico from a cemetery in Los Angeles to the mausoleum.
Old Chapel before it burned down in the 1900's
(Homestead Museum)
Actual present day view of the mausoleum
Graveyard a few gravestones are there. Walter Temple and John A. Rowland were the only names that I was able to recognize.
John A. Rowland's grave.
The plaque that states that the Workman Family Cemetery is a CA Historical Landmark
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