Stanford Mausoleum

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The Stanford Mausoleum, located in the northwest of the Stanford University campus in the Stanford University Arboretum, holds the remains of the university's namesake Leland Stanford, Jr. and his parents Leland and Jane Stanford.

The original intent of the Stanfords was to build a family mansion here but they had only gotten as far as planting a cactus garden (still present) before the death of their only son changed their plans to building an university instead. Nearby is a memorial (the Angel of Grief) to Jane Stanford's brother, Henry Clay Lathrop, which is a 1908 copy of a 1901 copy of an 1894 statue by the prominent American sculptor William Wetmore Story.

The mausoleum has sphinxes on both the front and the back. The back ones are Greek and female with naked breasts. The story goes that these were originally on the front but the Stanfords disapproved of them and replaced them with Egyptian style male sphinxes and moved the female sphinxes to the back.

The mausoleum is opened and a wreath laid once a year (in either March or April) as part of the Founders' Day activities. It is also the site of the Mausoleum Party, a traditional student Halloween party that in recent years was not organized, but was revived by student group Absolute Fun in 2006.

[edit] External links

Virtual Reality of Stanford Mausoleum, a QuickTime panorama by Erik Goetze
Stanford Mausoleum
Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 37.43651° -122.16989°
- Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

Stanford Family Mausoleum

	Leland Stanford Junior University
Places	Arboretum • Arizona Cactus Garden • Cantor Center for Visual Arts • El Palo Alto • Frost Ampitheater • Green Library • Hoover Tower • Stanford Mausoleum • Stanford Memorial Church • Stanford Research Park • Stanford Shopping Center •