Temecula Public Cemetery History
The Temecula Public Cemetery is located at 41911 C St. off of Santiago Road in Temecula. The cemetery encompasses 8.9 acres with 1.5 acres remaining for use. There are approximately 2800 graves there. Exact numbers are not known because many of the early records were lost in the fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Many of the state's records were stored there at the time. Present estimates suggest that a new cemetery will need to be built in about 10 or 15 years.
Juan Luis Vignes owned both Pauba and Temecula Ranchos and sold both to a group of San Francisco businessmen in 1853 for $25,000. These holdings were later sold to Francisco Sanjurjo. Domingo Pujol purchased this land from Sanjurjo about 1873. After his death, his widow, Mercedes Pujol came here from Spain to settle his estate. She donated the land for the present cemetery about 1894. She also sold land to the Pauba Land and Water Company that was later acquired by the San Francisco Savings Union Bank and sold to the Vails in 1905.
In about 1893 the same time Riverside County was formed, the Temecula Public Cemetery District was also formed. Official burial records began to be kept at that time. The district supervised the maintenance of the cemetery and set up regulations about who could be buried there. The main regulation is that the individual own land in the Temecula area.
Many of Temecula’s pioneers are buried in this cemetery. John Magee, 1826-1901, founder of Temecula’s first store and George Burnham, 1866-1935, whose family owned and operated a store on Main Street for 60 years, are buried there.
Sources: “Setting the Stage for the Vails” by Rececca Marshall Farnbach, [http://www.vailranch.org/ history/before_vails.htm]; Rancho News, 20 May 1983, “Cemetery part of Area's history“; The Press-Enterprise, 6 Jul 2000, “Even cemeteries feel growth” by Sandy Stokes; The Califorian, 21 Sep 2003, “Resident protest possible graveyard” by Teri Figueroa.
