El Campo Santo is a cemeterylocated at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, 15415 EastDon Julian Road, in City of Industry, California.
As one of the oldest private cemeteriesin Southern California, El Campo Santo contains the remains of thepioneering Workman-Temple family as well as Pío Pico, the lastgovernor of Alta California, and other prominent pioneer families.Within its low brick walls, the one-half acre cemetery features aNeoclassical mausoleum and a small cemetery plot surrounded by aGothic Revival cast-iron fence.
In the early 1850s, the family ofWilliam Workman (1799-1867) established El Campo Santo, or "thesacred ground," as a cemetery solely for the use of theirfamily. Along with a cemetery plot enclosed by an ornate cast-ironfence, they built a Gothic Revival brick chapel dedicated to SaintNicholas by Bishop Thaddeus Amat of Los Angeles. Among the first tobe buried here was William Workman's brother David Workman (1797 -1855), who was killed in an accident while driving cattle to the goldfields in Northern California.
At the turn of the century, thecemetery was abandoned and its brick chapel destroyed by fire. WalterP. Temple, a grandson of the Workmans, successfully filed a lawsuitpreventing any further desecration of the cemetery. In 1917, he wasable to purchase the cemetery and the surrounding 75 acres (300,000m2) and began restoration. In place of the chapel, however, he builta cast stone Neoclassical mausoleum and moved the remains of hisfamily inside. In 1921, he also transferred the remains of Pío Picoand his wife, Ygnacia Alvarado de Pico, from old Calvary Cemetery onNorth Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, which was being relocated,and had them entombed in the mausoleum.
The Workman Home and Family Cemeteryare designated California Historical Landmark No. 874. The cemeterywas placed on the National Register of Historic Places, No. 145, onNovember 20, 1974.
El Campo Santo is open to visitorsthrough a self-guided tour described in the free brochure availableat the museum office.
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