Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery

1700 Cabrillo Memorial Dr., San Diego, CA, 92106

GPS Coordinates: 32.688731, -117.245712
County: San Diego
Record count: 119,409

Ownership: National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Directions: Located on Point Loma (peninsula), north of Cabrillo National Monument. The cemetery straddles Cabrillo Memorial Drive.

Background: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, located on the historic Point Loma peninsula near San Diego, California, originated as a post cemetery on the Fort Rosecrans Military Reservation and was named in 1899 after Civil War General William Starke Rosecrans.

The site gained national attention after the 1905 USS Bennington explosion, which led to a mass burial and the erection of a memorial obelisk. Due to increasing veteran populations and limited space at San Francisco National Cemetery, Fort Rosecrans was designated a national cemetery on October 5, 1934, as part of a broader interwar expansion. Much of its early infrastructure, including the Spanish Eclectic-style buildings and boundary walls, was completed by the WPA by 1938.

The cemetery expanded through the mid-20th century, with major additions and features like the west entrance and flagpole installed by 1952, and an administration building added in 1957. The Department of the Navy contributed more land in 1965, just before the cemetery closed to new interments in 1966.

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