The city of San Francisco is apparently built atop countless forgotten cemeteries, according to an article published Wednesday.
San Francisco’s city leaders banned burials back in the early 20th century, but that doesn’t mean the city is teeming with forgotten graves from long before the ban came into play, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Locals might think the only cemeteries within the city are the military site in Presidio and the Mission Dolores cemetery, but they’d be wrong.
Apparently, there were cemeteries throughout the Bay Area, many of which were overtaken during the development of downtown’s residential neighborhoods that started to sprawl. While many grave sites were moved in the building of the once beautiful city, plenty of corpses were never actually transferred to their new resting places.
As a result, there are likely thousands of bodies hiding under the streets of San Francisco. Saints Peter and Paul Church nearing Washington Square sits atop a former cemetery, as does the San Francisco Public Library at the Civic Center. Even the site of the old Forever 21 in downtown was once a cemetery!
Author Beth Winegarner, a specialist in the field of finding San Francisco’s old cemeteries, described a repeating system of the city’s (clearly historical) terrible leadership. “Very quickly I discovered that we have these repeating stories,” Winegarner told the Chronicle. “There was a cemetery, then they forgot about it. They may have moved the bodies somewhere else. And then 20 years later, someone would be developing and go, ‘Why are there dead people here?'”
When the city was first settled, mass graves were not uncommon. Hundreds of people were dumped into single graves, all of which were forgotten about not long after they were created.
So, if you see zombies wandering around San Francisco, maybe don’t be so surprised. Along with the continued terrible leadership, San Francisco has become a final stop for many of America’s forgotten children. And I dread to think what happens to those who disappear into the city in the modern age.
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