Jones Cemetery

Kincheloe, whose wife Sarah was Capt. William Ware's daughter, built a two-story house a mile north of Waresville in 1873, laid off and sold lots, and gave land for churches, a park and a school. By 1880 a weekly stage stopped at the community, whose 150 people supported two gristmills, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a store and three churches. In 1884 a survey for a town called Montana was filed in Uvalde County and the post office moved there from Waresville; when residents learned another Texas place was named Montana, they chose Utopia.

What the plaque says

Jones Cemetery In 1879, the Rev. Irvin Jones (1825-1903) deeded two acres of land on his homestead to the Utopia Methodist Church for use as a cemetery. His wife, Elizabeth, had been buried in the center of the two-acre site upon her death in 1886. Early settlers of the Taylor and Utopia communities are buried in the Jones Cemetery, as are several Civil War veterans. Others interred here include Mexican War veteran and Texas Ranger Ben Highsmith and the Rev. O.A. Fisher, an early area Methodist minister. George Barker, a teacher credited with giving "Utopia" its name, is also buried here. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Garner State Park — 12 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.
• Lost Maples State Natural Area — 14 mi
  A canyon of the upper Sabinal where a relict stand of bigtooth maples turns color each autumn, a sight that drew crowds up a gravel road long before there was a park.
• Real County Historical Museum — 15 mi
  A small county museum in Leakey, at the head of the Frio Canyon, with a log-cabin parlor, an 1880s horse-drawn hearse, a wool and mohair shearing machine and 1910s jail cells.

More markers nearby

• Utopia — 1.2 mi
• Utopia Baptist Church — 1.3 mi
• Site of Old Taylor School — 1.7 mi
• William Ware — 2.2 mi