Contributed by Maggie Rail, Oct 08, 2002, last edited Oct 24, 2009
[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 referred to as Signal Hill
Cemetery, and I have finally found out why. Tim Thomas provided
me with a copy of the Jul 06, 1914 deed from the city of Long
Beach to Norman Argetsinger, for $20.00 land was granted to Norman
at West 1/2 of Lot 56, Block B, for the Signal Hill Cemetery.This
means the cemetery was established by Norman Argetsinger in 1914.
Here is a copy of the deed.
Information in the Questing Heirs Genealogical Society book mentioned
below, says the land was donated by the Bixby Family, along with
land for several parks. First burial was in 1887. All of the early
burial records were lost in a fire in 1936. I have no official
documents to back this up. There are many possiblilties. It would
be interesting to find out when it was decided to change the name
from Signal Hill Cemetery to Long Beach Municipal.
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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