An 1849 Catholic cemetery in Old Town San Diego where a 1942 street-paving project entombed more than 20 graves under modern San Diego Avenue — small bronze 'Grave Site' markers in the pavement memorialize them.
2410 San Diego Avenue, San Diego, CA 92110
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free and open to the public during daylight hours. Ghost tours operated by third parties are priced separately.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat dirt and gravel paths inside the adobe-walled cemetery; adjacent sidewalk grave markers are on paved street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1849 · Second-oldest cemetery in San Diego · Resting place of approximately 477 historic burials · Burial site of Santiago 'Yankee Jim' Robinson, hanged 1852 · Twenty-plus graves entombed under modern San Diego Avenue (paved 1942) · Bronze in-pavement grave markers placed 1993 after ground-penetrating radar survey
El Campo Santo, Spanish for 'the holy field,' was established in 1849 as the second cemetery in San Diego, serving the Catholic Mexican-California community of Old Town through 1880. Approximately 477 burials took place within its adobe walls during that 31-year period, including prominent Old Town families, Catholic clergy, and at least one executed criminal — Santiago 'Yankee Jim' Robinson, hanged at the Whaley House site in 1852 after being convicted (controversially, on a technicality) of stealing a horse rather than the boat he was actually accused of taking.
The cemetery's catastrophic decline began in 1889, when the San Diego Electric Railway cut a horse-drawn streetcar line directly through the cemetery's eastern edge. Tracks crossed marked graves. By the early 20th century the cemetery was overgrown and increasingly neglected. In 1933, the San Diego Historical Society undertook a major restoration, rebuilding the adobe wall, resetting surviving markers, reconstructing the paling enclosures around family plots, and placing a white wooden cross at the center.
In 1942, with streetcar lines being replaced by automobiles, the original streetcar right-of-way was paved over as part of modern San Diego Avenue — including the section that cut through the cemetery. More than twenty graves remain buried beneath the asphalt and concrete of the street and sidewalk in the 2400 block.
In 1993, ground-penetrating radar conducted by the city and Old Town historic preservation groups located the buried graves with reasonable precision. Small bronze discs marked 'Grave Site' were embedded in the sidewalk and street surface to mark each located burial. The markers are visible to any pedestrian walking the 2400 block today.
The cemetery is managed in conjunction with the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park and is open free to the public.
Sources
El Campo Santo's most distinctive haunted claim is also its most easily tested: the persistent report — described by Ghosts & Gravestones, San Diego Ghosts, and decades of local tour operators — that car batteries die when parked atop the bronze 'Grave Site' markers on the 2400 block of San Diego Avenue. Old Town merchants and residents have publicly affirmed the pattern; the reports are common enough that some locals refuse to park on the affected stretch of street.
A second cluster of reports involves period-costumed apparitions seen gliding above the marked street graves at dusk. Witnesses describe figures in mid-19th-century Mexican-California dress — long skirts, dark hats, vaquero attire — moving along the sidewalk just above the buried graves and vanishing when approached. The reports concentrate on the southwestern and western edges of the original cemetery footprint, where the streetcar line cut deepest.
Yankee Jim Robinson — hanged at the Whaley House site in 1852 and buried here — is among the most-named identifiable spirits. Witnesses report a tall, thin male figure near his grave inside the adobe wall, and tour operators connect him to the well-documented hauntings reported at the Whaley House, which was built atop his hanging site about a decade after his death.
Inside the walled cemetery, visitors describe cold spots, shadow figures moving between markers at the perimeter, orbs and unexplained light anomalies in photographs taken near the central white cross, and the sense of being watched. Ghost-tour operators have captured what they describe as electronic voice phenomena (EVP) at the cemetery's southwest corner. The reports trace primarily to ghost-tour operators and local witnesses rather than to peer-reviewed paranormal investigation literature.
Notable Entities
Walk the small adobe-walled cemetery during daylight hours and look for the small bronze 'Grave Site' markers embedded in the sidewalk and pavement on the 2400 block of San Diego Avenue — placed in 1993 after ground-penetrating radar located more than 20 graves entombed under the modern street.
Free walking access to the surrounding state park, which includes the Casa de Estudillo, Casa de Bandini, Cosmopolitan Hotel, and Whaley House (paid admission).
Multiple operators (Ghosts & Gravestones, San Diego Ghosts) feature El Campo Santo as an evening stop. Tours focus on the entombed-under-the-street story, the 1852 hanging of Yankee Jim Robinson, and the persistent claim that car batteries fail when parked over the buried graves.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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