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The flagship of our cemeteries, East Lawn Memorial Park, boasts 100 years of history as the final resting place for people of all backgrounds and cultures, and remains a Sacramento landmark to this day.
Phone: (916)-732-2000
Address: 4300 Folsom Boulevard
Sacramento, CA 95819
East Lawn Memorial Park was once a country farm on the outskirts of Sacramento. When it opened for business as a cemetery in 1904, many sightseers came to marvel at the park-like area of over 40 acres that would serve as the final resting place for generations of northern Californians. To date, over 100,000 people have been laid to rest at East Lawn during its 110+ years of operation. Many burials (4,000-5,000) from one of the earliest Sacramento cemeteries, New Helvetia Cemetery (Old Sutter Burying Ground), were removed from that site (now the location of Sutter Middle School) and re-interred at East Lawn. The Main Building containing offices, a chapel, numerous crypts and niches was built in 1926. There are 48 beautiful stained glass windows, some measuring almost 20 feet tall, throughout the Main Building (created by Clarence Todd and W. G. Pearson). A later addition, the El Dorado Mausoleum, stands to the left of the Main Building. All of East Lawn Memorial Park, its expansive acreage, buildings, and the unique clock at the entrance is truly a historic community landmark.
East Lawn Memorial Park is a cemetery in East Sacramento, California. It is owned by East Lawn Memorial Parks & Mortuaries, which also owns two other Sacramento area cemeteries. Founded in 1904, it is the resting place of several former Mayors of Sacramento as well as other public figures.
The cemetery was founded in October 1904, in response to the Edwards Break Flood of 1904. The first burials took place on December 24 of that year. During the early 1900s the park was administered by the East Lawn Cemetery Association. The cemetery has a two-story mausoleum that was completed in 1926, after several years of public opposition, led by a developer that had hoped to transition the memorial land into a residential zone. Despite the city council’s approval of the variance require to build the mausoleum, the developer put the issue on the upcoming election ballot. During the campaign, East Lawn made public statements that the families of those interred would not give their permission to move the remains of their loved ones beneath the ground of the cemetery.
In 2013 the park began to transition from vegetation to rock based gardens where appropriate to contend with seasonal drought conditions and water availability problems in northern California. In November of that year the cemetery had its one hundred thousandth interment. Those interred in the cemetery include actor Neville Brand, professional baseball player James M. Grilk,[8] composer Dick Jurgens, congressman Robert Matsui, and actress Dorothy Millette Bern. Former Mayors of Sacramento buried here include William Land, Clinton White, Hiram Hendren, Joe Serna, William Curtis, and Newton Earp.