Dickens Cemetery

The town the cemetery serves grew from 176 people in 1900 to its peak of about 500 by 1927, with about twenty-five businesses in the 1930s and 1940s. The 1950s cost Dickens thirteen businesses and its school, which was torn down after the district was divided among Patton Springs, Spur and McAdoo. The population fell to 259 by 1975, rose to 409 in 1980 and stood at 322 in 1990 and 2000. Dickens remained a market center for nearby ranches including the Pitchfork and Four Sixes, and the county museum is in the courthouse.

What the plaque says

The only cemetery to serve the town of Dickens. This graveyard began in 1891, the same year the town was founded. Mrs. C. F. Jones, wife of pioneer settler and town barber C. F. Jones, died in 1891 and was buried by her husband at the foot of a hill overlooking the Croton Breaks. The owner of the property, M. S. Crow, at the suggestion of his attorney, W. C. Ballard, donated five acres of land surrounding the grave site for a community cemetery. W. C. Ballard, considered by many to be the "Father of Dickens," died in 1913 and was buried here, as well. Many early settlers, city and county officials are interred in this graveyard. Also buried here are veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Through the years, the site of the Dickens Cemetery has increased through additional land donations. A fence was erected in 1919, and in 1948 local citizens formed a cemetery association to care for the grounds and monuments. Now, encompassing more than eighteen acres, the cemetery serves as a reflection of area history. 1994

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 10 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 24 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.

More markers nearby

• Dickens Springs — 0.3 mi
• Dickens County — 0.9 mi
• Espuela — 5.4 mi
• Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Spur — 11 mi