Eaton was born in 1881 in Liberty, Missouri, and moved west after earning his degree in chemistry, hoping to make his riches in silver mines. Things didn’t work out as planned, and in 1911, he moved to Los Angeles, where he took a job selling grave plots on commission to mourners at a new cemetery in what is now Glendale.
While others saw little more than a forlorn, sun-parched hillside burial ground in the suburbs, Eaton pictured a real estate bonanza on a parcel soon to be enveloped by the city. Los Angeles was on the verge of completing an aqueduct that would supply it with endless amounts of water and entirely transform its fortunes. By the 1920s, it would occupy America’s largest metropolitan area.
Eaton was right about a well-placed cemetery’s potential. Consider the math: A typical grave takes up about 30 square feet of space, meaning that more than 1,300 graves can easily be crammed into a single acre. The potential cash return on a cheaply bought piece of land—even if a plot sold for a paltry $10—was immense. The problem that Eaton’s cemetery, and so many others, faced was that it could take a long time to fill the grave plots. More people needed to die to see much of a reward. And young, newly transplanted professionals landing in Los Angeles weren’t likely to die in profitable numbers.
But there was another way. Eaton devised an aggressive presale program aimed at the living. Though the concept of presale, or preneed, had been used in other places, Eaton took it to a creative new level. He pitched people on security for their family if the unfortunate happened. He sold them ever-lasting life, not death, on a patch of sacred land where they could find immortal rest after their earthly terms ended. He wasn’t selling a grave plot, he was selling spiritual, and physical, peace of mind.
Still, the cemetery was floundering in debt. The owners, losing faith in the venture, didn’t see the future potential that Eaton did.
At the end of 1916, Eaton, through a set of aggressive financial maneuverings, and with the partial financial backing of close relatives and a legendary local real estate speculator, purchased a majority stake in the burial ground and became its director. On January 1, 1917, it became Forest Lawn Memorial-Park—a name chosen because it had a happier ring to it than cemetery.
The Builder’s first act as owner was to get rid of all traditional gravestones that jutted above the ground. They announced too loudly “a dead person lives here,” took up too much space, and made maintaining the grounds too time-consuming and costly. Instead, burial spaces at his cemetery would be marked by bronze plaques embedded flat in the earth, carpeted by vast lawns that an industrial tractor mower could quickly speed over.