Contributed by Maggie Rail, Oct 08, 2002, last edited Jul 29, 2007
[mrail@asisna.com]. Total
records = 2,048.
Long Beach Municipal Cemetery is maintained by the City's Department
of Parks, Recreation and Marine. When I was there reading this
cemetery on Jun 11-12, 2002, I have to say I found the cemetery
in excellent condition.
This cemetery is situated just east of Sunnyside Cemetery, which
is a privately owned cemetery, abutting the west side of the Municipal
Cemetery. The Municipal Cemetery is the oldest and first
cemetery in the city of Long Beach.
Long Beach Municipal is sometimes incorrectly referred to as
Signal Hill Cemetery, because of the locality, but as far as I
can find out, officially it has never been called that. One will
find it listed in obits and on death certificates, but no record
of the cemetery being named that have been found. It is the name
of the area however, the cemetery used by those living on or near
Signal Hill.
I am told that each year since 1995, the Historical Society of
Long Beach sponsors a walking tour of the Municipal Cemetery around
Halloween time, to help cemetery appreciation and historical preservation.
I have acquired a previous recording of this cemetery, which
does not have a date of transcription. Judging from the dates,
it was sometime between 1965 and 1967. This work was published
in 1974 by Questing Heirs Genealogical Society, of Long Beach
CA.
Most of these added records appear to be from the Sexton files,
with the dates being either the death or burial date. I
have placed an asterisk (*) at the end of each of these entries,
which means there is no marker and no photo. Information in parentheses
came from a family member.
In 1936 many of the early records for this cemetery were lost
by fire. Some have been and still are being replaced by researching
obits and death records. This is as complete a record as I was
able to create thus far. Please contact me if you find an error
I should correct.
Using a digital camera I walked and read this cemetery, with
some hand copying, on Jun 11, 2002. This work contains all existing
and legible headstones and markers, with additions from the above
mentioned work. I estimate at least 30+ were not able to be read,
and there must be dozens of burial places which have no markers.
- Maggie Rail
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