Few have left a mark on the Foothills communities as did Rancho Santa Ana del Chino owner Robert S. Carlisle.

Apoor young cowboy from Alabama who drifted west, Carlisle by the age of 38 became the region’s richest cattle baron and chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.

He was a charter member of the pro–Confederate Los Angeles Mounted Rifles militia, a key suspect in the Ramon Carrillo and John Rains murders that changed the face of the region, and the instigator and tragic victim of Los Angeles’ most famous western gunfight.

Carlisle provided the region with a strange Old West tale, a bizarre coda to a life that encapsulated the region’s evolution from sleepy ranchos to worldwide agricultural powerhouses – all because of his dental work.

Still causing trouble

Carlisle’s remains were carried from the Bella Union Hotel saloon after the infamous 1865 shootout with Frank and Houston King, following Carlisle’s bloody assault on their brother, Los Angeles UndersheriffA.J. King.

He was buried in the now–defunct Los Angeles City Cemetery that later become Fort Moore Hill Cemetery and today is the site of Grand Avenue School.

Decades after city leaders closed the graveyard in 1880, a cemetery watchman reportedly alerted Los Angeles’ colorful and corrupt mayor Arthur C. Harper that – even in death - Carlisle was causing trouble again.

“There was a casket that was broken into,” said historian and local cemetery expert W.R. (Bob) Marlowe of W.R. Marlowe Educational Services. “It was Carlisle, and he had no face.”

According to Marlowe, Carlisle was known to have cavities filled with diamonds at a time when dentists regularly used gold, tin, lead or even wax to fill cavities; and the wealthy young rancher was known to proudly display his dazzling dental work upon request.

However, years after city leaders shuttered the dilapidated cemetery it became a favored target for grave robbers. When the mayor found that Carlisle’s mangled corpse still attracted unwanted attention even after all of his teeth and much of his skull had been stolen, he ordered Carlisle’s remains to be moved to another, safer location.

Ghoulish legend

Marlowe wrote that much of the ghoulish legend may just be that – a legend.

Some historians contend that, while Carlisle’s corpse probably was violated, his departure to his current resting place at Rose Hills Memorial Park, 3888 S. Workman Mills Road in Whittier, may have been hastened merely by the city’s desire to build a school atop the abandoned graveyard and reinterred – or claimed to have reinterred – its residents.

When workers finally removed Carlisle from his crypt, they also found the remains of one of his grandchildren, the stillborn William S. Brodrick.

Together they were transferred to Rose Hills’ Portal De La Paz where they were reunited with Carlisle’s widow Francisca, his father-in–law and former employer Isaac Williams, and other family members.

Today the region’s most vilified historical character rests in one of California’s most picturesque memorial parks.