When Los Angeles was originally surveyed and mapped under the leadership of Gen. Edward Ord in 1849, its graveyard was at the upper end of Eternity Street.

In between lay a part of town flanked by adobe houses, citrus trees, and Coast Live Oaks suitable for traditional funeral processions escorting believers to eternity.

The land allotted to the cemetery lay between a creek a half block north of College Street and the toma (intake of the Zanja Madre) beyond the northern edge of town.

All the important magnates of the country around Los Angeles were buried at Calvary, such as Gen. Andrés Pico, the hero of the Battle of San Pascual, and Don Abel Stearns, a man of many ranchos.

Large in scale for the desert Southwest of Southern California, that chapel was dedicated to the memory of a patron, Andrew Briswalter, who died in 1885.

Bishop George Thomas Montgomery offered a Solemn Pontifical Mass on a temporary altar at the site, and afterwards presided at the setting in place of the cornerstone.