About Colma

Colma is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, near the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,792 at the 2010 census. The town was founded as a necropolis in 1924.

With most of Colma's land dedicated to cemeteries, the population of the dead outnumber the living by over a thousand to one. This has led to it being called, "the city of the silent," and also has given rise to a humorous motto, now recorded on the city's website: "It's great to be alive in Colma."

The community of Colma was formed in the 1800s as a collection of homes and small businesses along El Camino Real and the adjacent railroad line. Several churches, including Holy Angels Catholic Church, were founded in these early years. The community founded its own fire district, which serves the unincorporated area of Colma north of the town limits, as well as the area that became a town in 1924.

In the early 1900s, Colma was the site of many major boxing events. Famed middleweight world champion Stanley Ketchel held six bouts at the Mission Street Arena in Colma, including two world middleweight title bouts against Billy Papke and a world heavyweight title bout against Jack Johnson.

Colma became the location of a large number of cemeteries when San Francisco, the town's powerful neighbor to the north, passed an ordinance in 1900 outlawing the construction of any more cemeteries in the city (mainly because of increased property values making the cost of using land for cemeteries prohibitive), and then passed another ordinance in 1912 evicting all existing cemeteries from city limits. A similar scenario prevails in New York City's borough of Manhattan, where there are only two active cemeteries, both in the recently gentrified Lower Eastside, with marble-lined, underground vaults that pass Department of Health codes. The relocation of cemeteries from San Francisco to Colma is the subject of A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco's Lost Cemeteries (2005), a documentary by Trina Lopez.