COLMA, CALIFORNIA

'Colma' is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, at the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,191 at the 2000 census. The town was founded as a necropolis in 1924.
Much of the land of Colma is dedicated to cemetery usage. With 17 cemeteries for the interment of humans and one for pets, the dead population outnumber the living by thousands to one. This has led to it being called "the city of the silent", and also led to a more humorous motto among some residents: "It's good to be alive in Colma".

Contents

History

Notable interments

Geography and geology

Transportation

Planning and environmental factors

Demographics

''Colma: The Musical''

See also

References and Notes

External links

History

Colma became the location of a large number of cemeteries when San Francisco, the town's powerful neighbor to the north, passed an ordinance in 1900 outlawing the construction of any more cemeteries in the city (mainly because of increased property values making the cost of using land for cemeteries prohibitive), and then passed another ordinance in 1912 evicting all existing cemeteries from city limits. (A similar scenario prevails in New York City's borough of Manhattan, where only one active cemetery still exists — the Trinity Church Cemetery and Crematory, at the intersection of 155th Street and Broadway, on the northwestern edge of Harlem). The relocation of cemeteries from San Francisco to Colma is the subject of ''A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco's Lost Cemeteries,'' (2005) a documentary by Trina Lopez.
Colma was briefly called Lawndale, but because another city with the name Lawndale, California (in Los Angeles County) already existed, the town changed its name back to Colma in 1941. Originally, the residents of the town were primarily employed in occupations related to the many cemeteries in the town. Since the 1980s, Colma has become more diversified, with the variety of service and retail businesses typical of a small town in the United States.

Notable interments

Colma also contains the final resting place of Emperor Norton in Woodlawn Cemetery.
Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst is buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park; as are business magnate William Henry Crocker; Charles De Young, founder of the San Francisco Chronicle; horticulturist John McLaren; and jazz musician and bandleader Turk Murphy.
Wyatt Earp is buried at the Hills of Eternity in Colma next to his wife, Josephine Marcus.
Joe DiMaggio, the famous baseball player once married to actress Marilyn Monroe, is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery; as are coffee heiress and Manson murder victim Abigail Folger; San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto; 32nd governor of California Pat Brown; Bank of America founder A.P. Giannini; and Senator James D. Phelan.

Geography and geology

Colma is located at (37.678780, -122.455513). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.9 km² (1.9 mi²), all land. The town's 17 cemeteries comprise approximately 73% of the town's land area.
Colma is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula on the eastern foothills of the northwest trending Santa Cruz Mountain Range. The foothills and eastern flanks of the range are composed largely of poorly consolidated Pliocene-Quaternary freshwater and shallow marine sediments that include the Colma and Merced Formations, recent slope wash, ravine fill, colluvium, and alluvium. These surficial deposits unconformably overlay the much older Jurassic to Cretaceous-aged Franciscan Assemblage. An old landfill about 135 deep existed at the site developed by the 260,000 square foot mixed use Metro Center.^[1]
Colma Creek flows through the city as it makes its way from San Bruno Mountain to San Francisco Bay.

Transportation

Colma Station serves the city as part of the BART system. The station sits on both the Richmond - Daly City Line and Dublin/Pleasanton - SFO/Millbrae Line.^[2]
SamTrans provides bus service to the city.

Planning and environmental factors

When the Metro Center was developed, the Environmental Impact Report required a methane gas collection system to be constructed in order to collect off-gassing from the prior municipal solid waste disposal site at that location.

Demographics

Informally, as of December 2006, Colma had "1,500 aboveground residents ... and 1.5 million underground". Formally, as of the census of 2000, there were 1,191 people, 329 households, and 245 families residing in the town. The population density was 240.8/km² (624.6/mi²). There were 342 housing units at an average density of 69.1/km² (179.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the town was 48.36% White, 1.43% African American, 23.68% Asian, 0.25% Pacific Islander, 19.48% from other races, and 6.80% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 43.91% of the population.
There were 329 households out of which 36.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.1% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.5% were non-families. 17.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.47 and the average family size was 3.92.
In the town the population was spread out with 24.7% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 31.7% from 25 to 44, 19.1% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 87.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.9 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $58,750, and the median income for a family was $60,556. Males had a median income of $32,059 versus $29,934 for females. The per capita income for the town was $20,241. About 3.4% of families and 5.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.8% of those under age 18 and 3.7% of those age 65 or over.

''Colma: The Musical''

The 2007 American film '''Colma: The Musical''' was shot on location in Colma. The film has won several special jury prizes at local and international film festivals.^[3][4]

See also

★ Cypress Lawn Memorial Park

★ Holy Cross Cemetery

References and Notes

★ Colma, Calif., Is a Town of 2.2 Square Miles, Most of It 6 Feet Deep Carol Pogash
1. M.Papineau, B.George, J.Buxton et al., ''Environmental Impact Report for the Metro Center, Colma, California'', Earth Metrics report 10062, prepared for the city of Colma and the California State Clearinghouse (1989)
2. BART - Station Overviews, Colma Station
3. Big Teenage Dreams, Small-Town Doldrums Manohla Dargis
4. ''Colma: The Musical'' Home Page

External links