Oro Grande Cemetery listed as historic site
The San Bernardino County Museum added the Oro Grande Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in the county, to its list of historic sites.
Joe Manners, the volunteer caretaker of the cemetery since 1988, told the Daily Press the cemetery includes 130 marked graves, 15 with headstones and the rest with wooden crosses
“Years ago, the county coroner came out with ground penetrating radar and found buried bodies in oddball places, not too close to the cemetery, but still inside the fenced area,” said Manners, the honorary mayor of Oro Grande. “When the coroner came out, the total number of graves went from 115 to 130.”
With donations, Manners gathered wood and bought paint, and had someone make 15 new crosses for the newly found graves.
The unmarked graves may belong to Native Americans, who lived in the area. Most of those interred and identified at the cemetery were cement workers, miners and their loved ones, Manner said.
"There might even be more graves than are accounted for," Manners said. "Nobody know for sure."
The cemetery property’s first recorded burial occurred in 1852. Around 1890, the cemetery was officially established as the Bennette Memorial Park, county officials stated. The cemetery received its last internment in the mid-1960s.
Ownership of the site was transferred from the Oro Grande Foundation to the county in the mid-1970s.
In May 1975, the cemetery was designated as California Point of Historical Interest by the state.
Cemetery-museum connection
The cemetery features a memorial in honor of the late Army Lt. Manuel Rodriguez, whose Purple Heart is on display at the Victor Valley Museum in Apple Valley.
In 2018, the late Army veteran Felix Diaz, 83, who was given Rodriguez’s Purple Heart, donated it to the museum for display. The Purple Heart is affixed to a memorial wall inside the “Military in the Mojave” display room at the museum.
In September, Rodriguez’s nephew, Air Force veteran David Carrasco, 83, donated nearly a dozen of his uncle’s medals in an American flag case to the museum for display.
Rodriguez, 20, fought in World War II during the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines, where he was killed in action on Jan. 16, 1942. His body remains buried overseas.
His plaque at the cemetery, placed there in 1975, reveals how Rodriguez was an “incorrigible” youth, who was falsely accused of killing a night watchman who worked at the local mineral plant.
“Kenny Blum put up the memorial plaque along with his stepdad, Albert Padilla,” Manners said.
Manner continues to accept donations in exchange for cemetery tours, using the cash to pull weeds, clean trash and replace crosses.
"My heart will forever be connected to this town and the cemetery," Manners said. "Once I'm gone, I hope someone keeps the cemetery presentable."
The Oro Grande Cemetery is at 1313 Olive Street in Oro Grande. For more information, call the San Bernardino County Museum at (909) 798-8608 or visit museum.sbcounty.gov/oro-grande-cemetery.
Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Oro Grande Cemetery listed as historic site
