I Had Never Heard Of 'The City Of The Silent',

until today, 

 the story starts around the mid 1800s in the sleepy town of San Francisco, then a small settlement of about 200 residents, when gold was discovered in them thar hills, thousands rushed in and paid the ultimate price, their lives, over 20 cemeteries were built, or do I mean dug? 

anyway it was way too many for the small town, cemetery owners then started looking towards Colma, a small community of homes and small businesses along El Camino Real and the adjacent railroad line, the first cemetery, the Holy Cross, was established in 1887, in 1900, San Francisco announced that the city didn't have space for more cemeteries, and no further burials would be allowed, next in 1914, it decided that prohibiting new burials was not enough, it needed to reclaim the space occupied by the cemeteries, eviction notices were sent to all cemeteries to remove their bodies, and the dead began to arrive en masse at Colma,

 today, Colma is home to 1,800 living residents and 1.5 million dead including some of America’s most famous personalities such as the denim trouser pioneer, Levi Strauss, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, and business tycoon Amadeo Giannini, the founder of Bank of America, Levi Strauss is at Home of Peace, next to Hills of Eternity, where Wyatt Earp can be found and Joe DiMaggio is at Holy Cross, the large number of under-the-ground population have earned the town the sombre moniker “the City of the Silent”

 Colma’s residents, however, take their situation with humour, the town’s official slogan is “It’s great to be alive in Colma.” or I guess as an alternative, "I would not be seen dead in Colma" no offence to Colma residents dead or alive.