The Crocker Family Monument

Rendering of Crocker Monument

Millionaire's Row

Charles Crocker rests beneath one of the most striking monuments at Mountain View Cemetery—a circular granite temple that reflects both the ambition of the railroad era and the classical tastes of the Gilded Age. [Read more about his life HERE]

The Crocker Monument was conceived in the late 1880s as a permanent resting place for one of California’s most powerful industrialists. Crocker, one of the famed “Big Four” builders of the First Transcontinental Railroad, had died in 1888. His remains, along with those of his wife Margaret Crocker, were temporarily placed in a tomb at Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco until the family monument in Oakland could be completed. In December 1889 the remains of Charles and Margaret Crocker were formally reinterred in the newly finished mausoleum at Mountain View.

The monument was intended from the start to be grand. Contemporary reports described it as a structure sixty feet high, standing on a circular terrace approximately eighty feet in diameter and commanding sweeping views of Oakland, the Bay, San Francisco, and Mount Tamalpais. In 1889, the monument cost was about $100,000, the equivalent of $3.5 million in 2026 dollars.

Architecturally, the Crocker Monument was designed in the form of a classical Greek temple. The structure is circular and surrounded by fluted Ionic columns rising from a high pedestal. Above the colonnade sits a domed roof ornamented with carved laurel leaves—symbols of honor and victory drawn directly from classical antiquity. The Ionic order, known for its elegant scroll-shaped volutes atop the columns, was widely used in Greek sanctuaries and later revived during the nineteenth century as a symbol of civic virtue and permanence. For a railroad magnate who had helped bind the continent together, the symbolism was unmistakable: a temple-like memorial celebrating achievement, power, and legacy.

 

Crocker Monument (left), photo Michael Colbruno

The monument’s design was associated with prominent architects of the era. The plans were prepared by architect Willis Polk, who would later become one of the leading figures in Bay Area architecture. The architect of record is noted New York architect A. Page Brown, best known for such landmarks as the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the California State Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. He also designed a monument for Charles "Fred" Crocker at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, the eldest son of Charles and also an executive at the railroad. 

The stone itself came from California. Contractors for the monument arranged to quarry the granite from the Rocklin quarries in Placer County, which were among the most important granite sources in the American West during the nineteenth century. Large quantities of foundation stone were cut there and transported to Oakland for construction. The use of Rocklin granite ensured both durability and a distinctly California material for the memorial.

The stonework was overseen by R. C. Fisher & Co. of New York, a firm specializing in monumental construction, while the foundation and catacombs were completed locally. Beneath the circular temple lies the family burial chamber where Charles Crocker and Margaret Crocker were placed following the monument’s completion.

The setting itself reflects another layer of design history. Mountain View Cemetery was laid out by the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose curving roads and hillside terraces were intended to create a picturesque “rural cemetery.” The Crocker Monument occupies a commanding hillside site consistent with Olmsted’s vision—one where architecture and landscape combine to create dramatic views and contemplative spaces.

Choragic Monument in Athens

The Crocker Monument is not simply a generic “Greek temple.” Its circular form strongly resembles the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, built in Athens in 334 BCE. In ancient Greece, the Lysicrates monument celebrated victory in a dramatic competition. In Oakland, the symbolism translated into a victory monument to industrial power. The Crockers were effectively proclaiming that Charles Crocker’s achievement — building the transcontinental railroad — was worthy of classical commemoration.  For a Gilded Age railroad dynasty that admired classical culture, the message was clear: this was a hero’s monument.

Sources: Oakland Tribune, July 11, 1889; Oakland Tribune, September 6, 1889; Oakland Tribune, December 17–18, 1889; The Morning Times (Oakland), July 12, 1889; mausoleums.com portfolio on the Crocker Monument; Wikipeida: "Choragic Monument"