A Virtual Drive through Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery

As many of you know, Dark Destinations incorporates Google Maps as part of the site to help pinpoint our destinations geographically and assist in planning trips. The technology is made available through a Web developer API, which is not necessarily the same as the main Google Maps site itself. One of the main differences is a relatively new feature that is available on their main site, but not to us developers just yet - Street View.

This new technology allows us all to take a virtual drive down countless roads that have been mapped and filmed by specially equipped vehicles to get a true 360 degrees look at the surrounding area. Not surprisingly, not all roads have been given the "Street View" treatment just yet. Major roads are pretty well represented, but the company is still working on the various side streets of even some of the major metropolitan areas. With so many public roads yet to be catalogued and represented, it is a rarity to find a place like Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. While it is not a surprise to see that the various public roads around the grounds represented in "Street View," it is quite astonishing to find the roads inside the grounds covered as well.

Angelus-Rosedale is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angles, having been found when the population in the city was still in the tens of thousands. It is the home to the first crematory west of the Rockies and reportedly only the second crematory in the entire nation. It is also the final resting place of various influential pioneers of the area, and given its proximity to Hollywood, even features more than a few movie personalities. The colorful collection of characters include everyone from Dracula (1931) director Tod Browning and Oscar winning actress Hattie McDaniel, to a famed Tombstone doctor (whose offbeat wit was evident on various coroner reports), a Donner Party survivor, famed magician Harry Kellar, an infamous California serial killer, and even the murder victim (not connected to the serial killer) in a controversial crime that was later adapted to film. Finally, the grounds made an appearance in various episodes of the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as such shows as Charmed and Six Feet Under.

So if you are interested in taking a "Sunday drive" from the comfort of your computer, we invite you to take a look at our write-up on Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. Once you have a feeling for the place and the personalities buried there, click on the link below that to take your own "virtual tour" of the cemetery through the "Street View" option on Google Maps main site. You can experience the early history of Los Angeles, while also being amazed at just how far technology has come.

Read the tales of Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery on Dark Destinations.
Take a virtual tour of the grounds on Google Maps Street View. (Give it a chance to load and it should work on most browsers)

-Casey H.