Coghlan Beach Tombstones

San Francisco effectively outlawed new burials within city limits in the early twentieth century to prioritize development over its crowded cemeteries. As the remains of thousands were exhumed and relocated to the necropolis of Colma, the city faced a surplus of heavy, carved stone markers that had no one to claim them. Rather than disposing of these thousands of marble and granite headstones, the Department of Public Works repurposed them as common building material. You can find these remnants of the city's Gold Rush era serving as functional infrastructure across the coastline, including as breakwaters designed to protect the shoreline from erosion. During periods of low tide or after heavy storms shift the sand, these silent markers occasionally emerge to reveal the names and dates of the city's early inhabitants once again.