Established in 1876, the Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón was named after Christopher Columbus and designed by a Madrid-educated Galician architect by the name of Calixto Arellano de Loira y Cardoso. Built around a central chapel that was loosely modeled after the Florence Cathedral (aka “Il Duomo”), the 150-acre cemetery is laid out in a grid of main central avenues and smaller side streets. As planned by Loira, the layout organizes the occupants of the cemetery according to their rank and social status, with the wealthy and well-connected occupying prominent spots on main thoroughfares while more lowly individuals (such as the condemned, victims of epidemics, and “pagans”) are relegated to the “suburbs.” Colón Cemetery contains over 500 major mausoleums, chapels, and family vaults, with styles running from renaissance to neoclassical to art deco. In addition to the countless stunning examples of funerary architecture, unique sites include: an elaborate 75-foot-tall memorial for firefighters who died in a disastrous citywide fire in 1890. The very first occupant of Colón Cemetery was the architect Loira himself, who died before the project was finished.

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