Boren Cemetery

Boren Cemetery served the Reagor Springs and Bethel communities, and Reagor Springs has had a restless name. The Handbook of Texas says the Southerland Mayfield family settled it in 1844 as Reagers, probably for pioneer John Reagor, who arrived in 1850. It was a postal station for six months in 1878, got a post office as Ray in 1882, and took the name Reagor Springs in 1906 when the Texas and Brazos Valley Railroad arrived. The plaque notes that Michael Boren came in 1847 with his children and slaves; it does not name the enslaved people.

What the plaque says

Boren Cemetery Kentucky native Michael Boren and his second wife, Mary Ann (Ridgeway) moved to this part of Texas with their children and slaves in 1847. Hers is believed to be among the earliest graves in Boren Cemetery, as she died in 1857, but 1868 is the earliest death date recorded on a stone marker. It belongs to Sidney T. Boren, the five-year-old grandson of Michael and his first wife, Bettie (Morrow). Boren and his son George donated land for this cemetery for the use of the Reagor Springs and Bethel communities. A reflection of the area's history, it contains the graves of numerous military veterans and members of Ellis county pioneer families. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 7.8 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 23 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 26 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Hill County Courthouse — 31 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Thomas C. Neel — 1.8 mi
• Old Bardwell — 4.3 mi
• Sand Lake — 4.6 mi
• Nash Public School — 5.2 mi