It's Great To Be Alive in Colma

If you're a San Franciscan and you're dead, chances are your eternal resting place is in Colma. Colma, located just south of San Francisco, is the city's necropolis, a web of cemeteries and florists and headstone carvers. For every living resident of Colma, there are thousands of dead ones.

Wyatt Earp, buried with his Jewish wife in the Hills of Eternity Jewish cemetery, is perhaps the most famous dead resident of Colma. Then there's Emperor Norton, a colorful local celebrity who in 1859 proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States. Later he added Protector of Mexico to his title. San Franciscans, always ready to embrace the eccentric or even certifiably insane, celebrated his royal decrees, such as his order that the U.S. Congress be dissolved and that anyone using the odious word "Frisco" be fined.