Tombstones in Pioneer Park (By Frank Sabatini Jr.)
Pioneer Park, Mission Hills

‘Did You Know…’

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

Resting beneath the idyllic picnic grounds of Pioneer Park in Mission Hills are the graves of 1,800 people, many of them San Diego’s earliest citizens who were interred before the early 1900s.

The inviting, dog-friendly park was once a crowded cemetery crammed with tombstones from end to end. Although as years went by, the graveyard became unkempt, and the city took over by removing most of the headstones and planting grass and California pepper trees in their place.

About three dozen of the stones were spared. They were placed in loose arrangement along the park’s eastern extremity. It appears almost as though a groundskeeper swept them off to one side before cutting the grass, and that they are waiting to be put back in their proper locations. One engraving reads: “Here rests a woodsman of the world.” But his exact location of burial—like all the others listed on the dedication platform—remains a guessing game.

Oh, and for picnickers who don’t mind lounging atop these long-deceased pioneers, this is one of several parks in San Diego that allows alcohol consumption (in non-glass containers).