Alameda Cemetery

Alameda began as Mansker's Lake. William Henry Mansker started the settlement in 1859, mail came from Stephenville, and a mill stood at the nearby Allen Ranch. The first school opened in 1874, and a post office named Alameda operated from 1876 to 1882. A general store, a blacksmith shop and a Woodmen's hall stood near the lake. By 1936 a map showed four houses near the cemetery and a school. A claimed population of ninety-nine in 1860 is probably an exaggeration.

What the plaque says

Alameda Cemetery The earliest Anglo settlers in this area were drawn together by the harsh life they found in Texas. William Mansker, who came to Texas with his family in the mid-19th century, set aside a portion of his land for use as a school and community cemetery. The first burial in Alameda Cemetery is the subject of some debate. One legend tells of a baby stolen by a large panther; another pertains to Amanda Elizabeth (Henshaw) Coffer, identified on a plaque in the cemetery as Martha Coffee, said to have been killed by Indians in 1860, at Alameda community's peak. In the late 19th century the Alameda Cemetery Association was formed. A tabernacle and community center was erected inside the cemetery. In 1911, E. L. Reid bought the Mansker land and deeded approximately 5 acres to the Alameda Cemetery Association. Though the community of Alameda had dwindled to only four homes near the cemetery by 1936, the cemetery continued to thrive. A 1996 count revealed 879 graves, several marked only by rocks, in seven acres. Veterans of several American and international wars and conflicts are interred here. Family clusters like that of the Bell children, four of whom died in 1877, testify to the conditions endured by these pioneers. Alameda Cemetery is still in use. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 11 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 20 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.
• Dublin Bottling Works — 25 mi
  The Erath County plant that bottled Dr Pepper with cane sugar from 1891 until a 2012 settlement ended its Dr Pepper license, and that still makes its own sodas the same way.

More markers nearby

• Merriman Baptist Church — 6.9 mi
• Merriman Cemetery — 6.9 mi
• Ellison Springs — 6.9 mi
• Desdemona First Baptist Church — 7.1 mi