Brooks Cemetery

Shafter grew from silver. In September 1880 John W. Spencer, a freighter turned prospector, found ore here and showed it to Col. William R. Shafter at Fort Davis, who had it assayed and brought in Lts. John L. Bullis and Louis Wilhelmi. The Presidio Mining Company, organized in 1883, fought Bullis over his wife's section until the Texas Supreme Court ruled for the company in 1887. Then nearly 300 men worked the mine, Mexican citizens, Black Americans and Californians, who left for the Alaska gold rush in 1897.

What the plaque says

Brooks Cemetery George H. Brooks (1833-1911) served in a California volunteer unit during the Civil War before settling in Presidio County in the 1860s. In 1878 he married Mexican native Ygnacia Reza. This cemetery began with the burial of their son, Albion E. Brooks, in 1904. George and Ygnacia Brooks (d. 1948) and other members of the Brooks family, including former Texas Ranger and deputy sheriff Robert Speed (1878-1940), are buried here. Also interred here are friends and relatives of the Brookses in the Fuentes and Gonzales families. The cemetery remains active and is maintained by the Shafter community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Leaton State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The adobe trading post on the Rio Grande below Presidio, where digging has rewritten the stories told about it and a self-guided walk leads through its rebuilt rooms.

More markers nearby

• Here Milton Faver — 0.3 mi
• Milton Faver Ranches — 5.2 mi
• Milton Faver — 5.9 mi
• Mission San Francisco de los Julimes — 15 mi