National parks: Cemetery - public domain image

Two features come into view as you enter the cemetery. The first is the mortuary chapel, circular in design and about sixteen feet in diameter. The roof, possibly intended to be a dome, was never completed. Its walls have heard the echoes of many funeral Masses and rosaries. The Soto marker identifies several graves belonging to members of a family who lived at Tumacácori after the turn of the twentieth century.
As you proceed into the cemetery toward the interpretive sign near the mortuary chapel, the graves on the north side of the cemetery come into view. These are also burials from the early twentieth century. Any evidence of mission-era graves was destroyed long ago by weather, treasure hunters, and cattle. Toward the end of the nineteenth century the cemetery was used as a corral during cattle drives and roundups. Families who moved into the area around 1900 knew it as campo santo (holy ground) and used it once again to bury their dead. Juanita Alegria's grave is the last burial (1916).