Pioneer cemetery tells a long history

#RockSolidHistory again from Julian, CA!

This early Wild West town, founded mostly by prospectors in the California Gold Rush of 1849, was a wild place indeed. You can tell by looking at the Pioneer Cemetery there on the hill above town. It was a rough place to live.

Founded in 1870, the cemetery placard by the Julian Historical Society reads,
“Primitive living conditions, violence, alcohol, disease and fatal accidents, all common in the Julian Gold Mining District, created an urgent need for a graveyard. Such use began on this then private property with the burial of stillborn babies under a sheltering oak tree. The earlier burials recorded are those of two teenaged boys who died in the winter of 1875. Soon other victims were buried, some “with their boots on” in unmarked graves, some in family plots, and some alone in what became, in fact, a community cemetery.”

There are makeshift cemetery markers of all kinds, from wood, to handmade concrete, to nail-punched metal. There is a small, white fenced-in area where the stillborn babies were buried.

Cemeteries tell a lot of history, and in this case, shocking and sad events.
​
#cemeteryhistory #JulianCemetery #PioneerCemetery #JuliaCAhistory #CaliforniaHistory #PioneerHistory #AmericanHistory #GoldRush #1949GoldRush #WildWesthistory #historyforkids #historyexplorationCA