Davis Cemetery

Location

820 Pole Line Road at 8th St.

Hours

Open 24 Hours

Phone

(530)756-7807

Website

DavisCemetery.org

The grounds are open 24 hours a day, though not lit at night. You can call the office at the phone number listed above to make funeral arrangements. Names of people laid to rest in the cemetery can be found at their website.

The area was bought by Joseph B. Chiles in 1850, and the grounds were probably used as a cemetery shortly after this purchase. Historical sources note that there used to be a number of wooden grave markers, but they have all been lost to grass fires and vandals. Some of the earliest burials were pioneers and Chinese settlers; due to the lost markers many of them now reside in unmarked graves. The oldest gravestone still standing in the cemetery dates to 1855. The cemetery lands were expanded and officially donated to the Catholic Church in the late 1800s by Bridget Dee, the widow of Isaac Skinner Chiles. As such, they remained the sole property of the Catholic Diocese until 1958, at which point three acres were handed over to the Davis Cemetery District.

There is a marker honoring veterans by the flagpole in front of the building. There is also a labyrinth near the flagpole.The back part of the cemetery where there are no graves used to be a popular dog park. However, due to usage conflicts between dog owners and both cemetery visitors and neighboring residents, the contract between the city and the cemetery was not renewed. (The city has a new dog park on Second St. under the Pole Line overpass.) The cemetery has discouraged drive-through traffic by erecting a gate at the Pole Line Road entrance. In the past the cemetery was sometimes used as a place for minors or homeless people to "hang out" but the thinning of shrubbery along the Pole Line fence and regular police patrols have eliminated this.

The new gate blocking the Pole Line Road driveway A black chicken that lives at the cemetery