Carmel is a microcosm of California's architectural heritage, sited at one of the most scenic meetings of land and sea in the world. Mission San Carlos Borromeo became a root building for California's first regional building style, the Mission Revival. "Carmel City," as it was called in the 1880s, was marketed as a seaside resort for Catholics. Its pine-studded sand dunes survived the imposition of a standard American gridiron street pattern, with a Western, false-front main street, to become "Carmel-by-the-Sea." Artists, academics, and writers embraced the arts-and-crafts aesthetic of handcrafted homes built from native materials, informally sited in the landscape. In the mid-1920s, Tudor Revival and Spanish Romantic Revival styles enhanced the storybook quality of the community. Carmel's architectural character is primarily the product of working builders. Its design traditions have been interpreted and modified for modern times by noted architects, building designers, and craftsmen. Individual expression continues as an ongoing aesthetic theme.

A local poet once described Carmel-by-the-Sea, with its haunting pines, fog, and white sand, as our inevitable place. The area had been inhabited for more than 3,000 years when Fr. Junipero Serra chose the site for his mission headquarters in 1771. The romantic name, Carmel-by-the-Sea, was the gift of a group of women real estate developers, later used in advertising lots for brain workers at in-door employment. Many Stanford and UC Berkeley professors, artists, writers, and musicians left a lasting legacy here in their art and in their rejection of largescale commercial development. Although impoverished artists may no longer afford to live here, many residents and millions of sojourners still consider the lovely village packed with galleries and eateries their inevitable place.

From the heartbreak of dozens of families burying their children after the notorious Our Lady of Angels School Fire to the serenity of a grieving mother, who six years after the death of her daughter finds her wedding-clad body in peaceful repose; from the lawlessness of the bootleg era, punctuated by such ignominious figures as Al Capone and Dean O'Banion, to the patriotic triumph of one of the flag bearers of Iwo Jima, Mount Carmel and Queen of Heaven Cemeteries have provided the final chapter in the colorful lives and tragic events that have marked the city of Chicago for the last century. It denotes the final resting place of the churches' bishops and cardinals as well as the city's beloved parents, grandparents, and children. Mount Carmel and Queen of Heaven Cemeteries offers a unique glimpse into the history of Chicago during a time that saw massive immigration, rising industrialization, two world wars, and numerous tragedies, by chronicling the lives and stories behind the individuals who are interred there. From the heartbreak of dozens of families burying their children after the notorious Our Lady of Angels School Fire to the serenity of a grieving mother, who six years after the death of her daughter finds her wedding-clad body in peaceful repose; from the lawlessness of the bootleg era, punctuated by such ignominious figures as Al Capone and Dean O'Banion, to the patriotic triumph of one of the flag bearers of Iwo Jima, Mount Carmel and Queen of Heaven Cemeteries have provided the final chapter in the colorful lives and tragic events that have marked the city of Chicago for the last century. It denotes the final resting place of the churches' bishops and cardinals as well as the city's beloved parents, grandparents, and children. Mount Carmel and Queen of Heaven Cemeteries offers a unique glimpse into the history of Chicago during a time that saw massive immigration, rising industrialization, two world wars, and numerous tragedies, by chronicling the lives and stories behind the individuals who are interred there.