Search California Death Records

•  California Newspapers, Full Search (1846-2016), 459 titles
•  California Obituary Search, (1865-current)
•  California Birth Records Database, (1846-1899)

 

Flowing Well Memorial Cemetery
Imperial County, California

GPS: 33.214095, -115.448363

Contributed by Steve Paul Johnson [steve@cleardigitalmedia.com] and Stacy Vellas [stasia6@earthlink.net] on November 19, 2000.

Flowing Well originally was a stop along the Southern Pacific railway, during the late 1800s. In those days, the steam locomotives needed to stop about every 20 miles to reload with water. These days, the diesel engines just drive on by. Visit "Flowing Well Cemetery" for information about the stop.

A memorial had been placed at the actual site of Flowing Well. But over the years, several flash floods had wreaked damage to the marker. In recent years, the marker was relocated about 0.7 miles north of the site, to its present-day location, near a small cemetery, other than the actual Flowing Well Cemetery...

"FLOWING WELL

Once a tiny desert railroad stop, Flowing Well became the gateway to Imperial Valley in the first few years of the Twentieth Century.  Here, the hardy pioneers who had come by railroad to make the valley what it is today had to transfer to a stage which would take them to the land of their choice.  To these pioneers, to the railroaders and stage drivers this monument is dedicated by The Boy Scouts of America Troop 79".

 

Sometime after this plaque was dedicated there were the inevitable ravages of time and vandals; a later inscription states:

 

"Monument restored and re-dedicated by the Native Daughters of the Golden West, the Native Sons of the Golden West, and the Imperial Valley Historical Society November 18 1989".

That later inscription had since become worn away too.

This cemetery is often referred to as "Campo Santo", which is spanish for "Holy Ground". Person's buried here are likely those from Flowing Well and another old town known as "Old Beach".

The cemetery lies about 5 miles south west of downtown Niland. Get to the intersection of Nofsinger Road and Flowing Wells Road. The Memorial marker is about 0.2 miles south along Nofsinger Road, just north of where the road changes names to Nider Rd.