Burleson Cemetery

Four Burleson brothers and a child lie in a family plot beside US 277, and for decades no one knew whose graves they were. The family was among the first at Carrizo Springs, arriving between 1865 and 1870, the years Levi English led fifteen families there. In 1895 three brothers, the youngest about eighteen, died suddenly, probably of food poisoning, and Marion Burleson died of heat stroke that July. Texas Department of Transportation investigations in the 1990s identified the site. Pavers and a terracotta cross over each of five graves now mark it.

What the plaque says

Burleson Cemetery Among the earliest settlers in the area later named Dimmit County, the Burleson family settled near Carrizo Springs between 1865 and 1870. James A. (1869-1895), Joseph E. (1870-1895), and Samuel (1877-1895) Burleson died suddenly, probably of food poisoning. The following July, Marion M. Burleson (1853-1895) succumbed to heat stroke and was buried on family land with his brothers and a Burleson child. As time passed, the graves on this site became a mystery. Investigations at the end of the twentieth century by the Texas Department of Transportation found it to be the final resting place of the Burleson family. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dimmit County Courthouse — 4.6 mi
  An 1884 Italianate courthouse wrapped in a 1920s Classical Revival remake, in the seat of a county whose white primary kept Mexican Americans out of politics for nearly fifty years.
• My Story Museum — 8.7 mi
  A free museum on Zavala Street holding three stories of one small Texas town: the 1969 student walkout and Raza Unida years, the internment camp and its veterans.
• Crystal City Family Internment Camp Site — 9.6 mi
  The only wartime camp built for whole families, where Japanese, German and Italian Americans and Latin American deportees were held from 1942 to 1948, now marked by cottage foundations and a pool.

More markers nearby

• Dimmit County — 4.6 mi
• Zavala County — 8.8 mi
• Crystal City Family Internment Camp, World War II — 9.6 mi
• Zavala County — 14 mi