Atoka Cemetery

Atoka did not vanish so much as merge. Nearby Novice began in the late 1870s as Tyro, on Rough Creek, and took its new name when its post office reopened in 1884, supposedly because the store's owners were novices in business. When the railroad came through in 1910, Novice moved a mile north to the line and combined with Atoka. By 1914 the new town had two hotels, a gin and a bank. An oil boom in the early 1930s pushed its population to about 450 in 1931, before a long decline to 142 by 2000.

What the plaque says

Settlement of this area began in the 1850s with the establishment of Camp Colorado, a United States cavalry outpost. At the outbreak of the Civil War the camp was occupied by Texas State Troops and Texas Ranger units. The existence of the camp spurred permanent settlement in the area, and many families moved here from the southern United States after the Civil War. The settlers established farms and ranches, and the Atoka community included a general store operated by D.A. Parker and S.N. Edenborough, a combination church/school building, and a cotton gin built by D.A. Parker. This cemetery was established in 1880 on land deeded by C.E. Bush. Among the early pioneers buried here are the Rev. Hugh Martin Childress, Sr., a former Texas Ranger and Republic of Texas soldier; his son, Elisha Childress, who served as the first Coleman County sheriff; veterans of the Civil War; and several workers killed in an explosion that occurred during the construction of a Santa Fe Railroad bridge across Jim Ned Creek in 1910. The cemetery, which is maintained by an association of descendants of those buried here, is one of the few physical reminders of the Atoka community and its pioneer settlers. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 17 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Abilene State Park — 21 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 22 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 24 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.

More markers nearby

• Old Townsite of Content — 4.6 mi
• Ranger Campsite — 5.5 mi
• Ranger Peak — 5.5 mi
• Cotton Production in Runnels County — 5.5 mi