Center Point Cemetery

The Rangers buried here served a force that shrank after them. By 1900 critics urged cutting or abolishing it, and in 1901 the legislature reduced it to four companies of no more than twenty men each; captains J. A. Brooks, William Jesse McDonald, John H. Rogers and John R. Hughes kept it alive. Border violence from 1914 to 1919, when regular and special Rangers killed about 5,000 Hispanics, brought scandal. In 1919, at Representative Jose T. Canales's insistence, the legislature cut companies to fifteen men, raised salaries and set procedures for citizen complaints.

What the plaque says

Center Point Cemetery The earliest known settlers in this area were Mrs. Elizabeth Denton and her children and slaves, who arrived in 1852. They were joined in 1858 by the family of Dr. Charles Ganahl, who named the new community Zanzenberg, after his hometown in Austria. The town became known as Center Point in 1872, and settlers continued to moved into the area. In 1872 land was purchased for a church and cemetery on this site, and in 1881 two acres were added to the property to enlarge the cemetery. The church was moved off the property, and another land acquisition in 1901 increased the cemetery property to 5.3 acres. Approximately 1,452 graves have been located here. The oldest marked burial is that of Lydia Burney (1795-1875). Many early pioneers and community leaders are buried here, as well as 32 Texas Rangers, whose names are: W. D. C.Burney; N. Coldwell; J. A. Gibbens; H. T. Hill; F. L. Holloway; R. J. Irving, Sr.; R. J. Lange; J. H. Lane; S. T. Lane, Jr.; T. Lane; M. A. Lowrance; J. L. McElroy; S. G. McElroy; A. S. Moore; F. M. Moore; G. K. Moore; G.R. Moore; G. W. Moore; H. C. Moore; James Moore; J. T. Moore; M. F. Moore; D. C. Nowlin; J. C. Nowlin; R. W. Nowlin; P. Alonzo Rees; N. O. Reynolds; W. H. Rishworth; J. L. Sellars; A. J. Sowell; W. H. Witt; S. G. Wray. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 7.8 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Schreiner Mansion — 9.8 mi
  The 1879 downtown home of Charles Schreiner, the Alsatian-born merchant, banker and rancher whose store and mohair trade built Kerrville.
• Frontier Times Museum — 14 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 17 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.

More markers nearby

• N.O. Reynolds — steps away
• Center Point Christian Church — 0.5 mi
• Center Point School — 0.6 mi
• Center Point United Methodist Church — 0.6 mi