Cross Cut Cemetery

The Handbook of Texas explains the community's first name: Cross Out, because it lay across the county and out of the usual way of travel. John M. Bloodworth founded it, opening a store in 1878 and serving as the first postmaster. Cross Cut stayed small through the nineteenth century. The county's first large oilfield came in near Cross Cut in 1919, producing from 1,100 feet, and the town grew somewhat with the oil of the early 1920s. The Depression shrank it; in 1940 it had one store and seventy-nine people. By 1980 its population was forty-five.

What the plaque says

Settlement began in this area of Brown County after the Civil War when several families from southern states moved here. They formed a community, initially known as Cross Out. It became Cross Cut in 1897 when an error was made on a post office application. Caroline Pentecost Elsberry was the first person buried in this community cemetery in July 1879. The two-acre plot of land dedicated as a graveyard is believed to have been donated by Mark and Sarah Pentecost. Oil was discovered in 1923 in the Cross Cut sand formation. The small town quickly swelled to accommodate the increase in population and several new businesses were added. By 1940 the population of the town was exceeded by the number of burials in the cemetery. In 1954 the Cross Cut School consolidated with Cross Plains Schools, and the town declined thereafter. Only a few buildings and the cemetery remain. Among those buried here are early settlers and their descendants, and veterans of conflicts from the Civil War through the Vietnam War. A cemetery association was formed in 1976, and a perpetual care trust was established. The site continues to serve the area. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Brownwood State Park — 13 mi
  A CCC park on a reservoir that filled in a single flood before its dam was done, with stone cabins, a hilltop dance pavilion and a grand staircase climbed by dancers arriving by boat.

More markers nearby

• Home of Robert E. Howard — 7.2 mi
• Fort Mason-Camp Cooper Military Road — 7.2 mi
• Cross Plains Review — 7.3 mi
• Rising Star — 11 mi