Does anyone know why Andrew Hallidie, the inventor of the cable car, is buried where he is? I find it strange that a man as prominent, and I presume as wealthy as Andrew Hallidie must of been during his time, would be buried along with 50,000 other souls in a mass grave. I have read that he was laid to rest like so many of that time, at the Laurel Hill Cemetery on Lone Mountain, in his own plot and was later moved to Cypress Lawn when the San Francisco cemeteries were forced to close. But unlike practically every other notable of his time who built imposing monuments to themselves, there is no grand mausoleum or even a head stone with his name on it. Was his body misplaced like David Broderick's and therefore it's just assumed his remains ended up under the giant obelisk? Does anyone the story behind this?

-- Michael S. Binetti (mbinetti@boldata.com), March 11, 2002

Answers

Hallidie was buried under/in a proper monument at Laurel Hill but he and his wife didn't have any children, so I suspect there was no one to intercede when they dug up Laurel Hill. People whose heirs didn't make any other arrangements generally wound up in the mass crypt.

-- Joe Thompson (cable_car_guy@hotmail.com), March 12, 2002.