Texas State Cemetery

Texas State Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Texas State Cemetery entrance
Location:	901 Navasota Street Austin, Texas, USA
Coordinates:	30°16′01″N 97°43′34″W
Built:	1851
MPS:	East Austin MRA
NRHP Reference#:	86001085
Added to NRHP:	May 12, 1986

The Texas State Cemetery (TSC) is a cemetery located on about 22 acres (8.9 ha) just east of downtown Austin, the capital of Texas. Originally the burial place of Edward Burleson, Texas Revolutionary general and Vice-President of the Republic of Texas, it was expanded into a Confederate cemetery during the Civil War. Later it was expanded to include the graves of prominent Texans and their spouses.

The cemetery is divided into two sections. The smaller one contains around 900 graves of prominent Texans, while the larger has over 2,000 marked graves of Confederate veterans and widows. There is room for 7,500 interments; the cemetery is about half full; meaning, people who are eligible for burial have chosen their plots. The cemetery is not a military cemetery.

Burial guidelines

The current guidelines on who may be buried within the Texas State Cemetery were established in 1953. Persons must be one of the following:

• Member or ex-member of the Texas Legislature
• Confederate veteran
• Elected state official
• State official appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature
• Individual designated by governor’s proclamation or concurrent resolution of the Legislature
• Spouse of anyone meeting the above criteria.
• Child of an eligible member who has remained in an eleemosynary institution.

History

Texas State Cemetery

Confederate graves at Texas State Cemetery

Vietnam Veterans monument at state cemetery

Purple Heart monument to all of the wounded in America's wars

After the death of Edward Burleson in 1851, the Texas Legislature arranged for his burial on land formerly belonging to Andrew Jackson Hamilton. In 1854, the Legislature established a monument at Burleson's grave-site for $1,000 and purchased the surrounding land. The burial ground was virtually ignored until the Civil War, when Texas Confederate officers killed in battle were buried there. In 1864 and 1866 more land was purchased for veterans' burials. An area of 1-acre (4,000 m²) was also set aside for graves of Union veterans (all but one later removed, to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio). The remaining Union soldier is Antonio Briones, who was left at the request of his family. He is interred alone in the far northwest corner of the cemetery.

Because the Texas Confederate Men's Home and the Confederate Women's Home were located in Austin, more than two thousand Confederate veterans and widows are interred at the State Cemetery. Most were buried after 1889. The last Confederate veterans in the Cemetery were reinterred in 1944; the last widow, in 1963.

In 1932, the State Cemetery was little known and had no roads. There was a dirt road running through the grounds of the Cemetery linked to what was then called Onion Creek Highway. The road kept its highway status when Texas historian Louis Kemp brought it to the attention of the Texas Highway Department that the road running through the Cemetery should be paved. The roads, which are officially designated as State Highway 165, are dedicated to Kemp, and were for a time known as "Lou Kemp Highway". Kemp was also the driving force behind the reinterment of many early Texas figures in time for the Texas Centennial in 1936.

The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, but by the early 1990s, the State Cemetery had fallen into disrepair — suffering from vandalism and decay — and was unsafe to visit. In 1994, after noting the condition of the Cemetery, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock initiated a three-year project that added a visitor center and renovated the cemetery. In 1997, there was a rededication and a reopening of the State Cemetery, and it remains one of the more visited sites in Austin for schoolchildren, adults, and history enthusiasts. Tours are offered and should be scheduled in advance.

The three-person Texas State Cemetery oversees daily operations at the cemetery. Scott Sayers (appointed by Governor Rick Perry) is chairman. Coley Cowden (Speaker's appointment) and Borah Van Dormolen (appointee of the lieutenant governor) also serve. The cemetery superintendent is Harry Bradley. The historian is Jason Walker.

Statistics

As of 2006, buried in the Texas State Cemetery are:

• 13 Governors of Texas
• 5 Lieutenant Governors of Texas
• 5 Speakers of the Texas House of Representatives
• 15 Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence
• 3 U.S. Senators
• 6 U.S. Representatives
• 4 First Ladies of Texas
• 5 Noted authors
• 16 Texas Rangers
• 11 Republic of Texas veterans
• 9 Confederate Generals
• 3 Medal of Honor recipients
• 2 American Revolutionary War veterans
• 1 17th century French sailor (remains discovered in the wreck of La Salle's ship La Belle in 1996)
• 1 member of the Baseball Hall of Fame

Notable interments

Tomb of Albert Sidney Johnston.

• Joseph Hugh Allen
• Betty Andujar
• Stephen F. Austin
• Moseley Baker
• George Beto
• Elton Bomer (wife interred; he is still living)
• Bob Bullock
• Edward Burleson
• Andrew Briscoe
• Guy Morrison Bryan
• Waggoner Carr
• John B. Connally
• Nellie Connally
• Wayne Connally (cremated, with cenotaph)
• Russell B. Cummings
• Edmund J. Davis
• J. Frank Dobie
• John Holt Duncan
• Ray Farabee (pending his death)
• James E. Ferguson
• Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson
• Lena Guerrero
• James Washington Guinn
• Warren G. Harding (Texas politician)
• John Hemphill
• Andrew Jackson Houston
• John Ireland
• Patrick Churchill Jack
• Barbara Jordan
• Albert Sidney Johnston
• Dan Kubiak
• L. B. Kubiak (pending)
• Edmund Kuempel
• Tom Landry (cenotaph)
• Frank Madla
• Benjamin McCulloch
• Crawford Martin
• Jim Mattox
• William Menefee
• Walter Mengden (pending)
• James A. Michener (cenotaph)
• Dan Moody
• William Neff "Bill" Patman
• Randy Pendleton
• J. J. Pickle
• Richard "Cactus" Pryor
• Ann Richards
• Sterling C. Robertson
• Jerry Sadler
• William Read Scurry
• Gwyn Shea (husband interred; pending)
• Max Sherman (pending)
• Allan Shivers
• E L Short (pending)
• Edwin "Bud" Shrake
• Preston E. Smith
• Alexander Watkins Terrell
• Ernest O. Thompson
• May Peterson Thompson
• Homer Thornberry
• John G. Tower (cenotaph)
• Joanna Troutman
• Byron M. Tunnell
• William A. A. "Bigfoot" Wallace
• Walter Prescott Webb
• Willie Wells
• George E. "Buddy" West
• Will Wilson
• Ralph Yarborough
• James Pinckney Henderson
• Ray Allen Lemmon (Texas House of Representatives for the 61st and 62nd Legislatures)

Popular culture

• In one episode of King of the Hill, Cotton Hill is awarded a plot in the Texas State Cemetery for his heroism during World War II. However, Cotton is never buried in this plot when he passes away in another episode.

Gallery

• 

  Crescent Pond

• 

  Opposite end of the pond

• 

  September 11th Memorial

• 

  Main flagpole, on the Hilltop

• 

  Stephen F. Austin's statue

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  A section marker

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  Visitor's center

• 

  Texas State Cemetery as seen from East 7th Street

External links

• Texas State Cemetery Official site.
• Texas State Cemetery searchable database. One can search by name or by location in the cemetery.
• State Cemetery from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Political Graveyard list of politicians buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
• Where They R.I.P. Site dedicated to finding the burial locations of Texas's elected officials from the Republic Era to Statehood. Includes lists of African-American Legislators, Governors and other elected officials.
• Texas State Cemetery at Find a Grave