Mountain View Cemetery's main gate 1885 photographed by Frank Rodolph.
Mountain View Cemetery
5000 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA 94611
Fredrick Law Olmsted designed a city for the dead
On December 26, 1863 a group of Oaklanders formed the Mountain View Association. They elected officers, choosing Dr.Samuel Merritt as the first president, and began the search for a site for the cemetery. The Reverend I. H. Brayton, who sat on the first board of trustees, sold the cemetery 220 acres for $13,000. Brayton used the proceeds to continue Oakland's College of California, the predecessor to the University of California at Berkeley.
The board of trustees employed Fredrick Law Olmsted, famed for his design
of New York's Central Park, to lay out the cemetery grounds.
Mountain View Cemetery was dedicated on Decoration Day, May 25, 1865. The first interrment was Jane Weir in July 1865. By 1876, 2,000 burials had been recorded. Today there are approximately 165,000 interred here.
Take a virtual tour of Mountain View Cemetery on the museum’s Web site at http://collections.museumca.org/gallery.jsp?user_id=22
Check out Chris Pattillo's Mountain View Cemetery tree book here.
A three-hour walking tour of the cemetery is offered at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of
each month.
For more information call (510) 658-2588
Photo
by Richard Kos
Chocolatier Domingo Ghirardelli built this mausoleum for his family in Mountain View
Cemetery in 1890.
Photo
by Richard Kos
C.O.G. Miller's mausoleum graces the street just below Millionaires' Row. Miller made his
fortune in the Pacific Gas Lighting Corporation. The pyramid tomb was built in 1896 for
his first wife, Einnem.