Keeter Cemetery

Keeter was a short-lived cotton town. The Handbook of Texas says it began in the early 1880s, drew a post office branch in 1883, and within a decade had four cotton gins, a general store and an elementary school. Cotton production fell in the early 1900s, the population went with it, and mail service ended in 1904. The two sources disagree on the namesake. The Handbook says L. L. Keeter, a Baptist minister who owned a quarter section north of town; the cemetery marker names Albert Lafayette Keeter. Neither source says whether they are one man.

What the plaque says

Keeter Cemetery For over 100 years beginning in 1882 this cemetery has been the sole graveyard serving the community of Keeter. The oldest recorded gravesite in the cemetery is that of Ida Mae Ryan (1881-1882). Albert Lafayette Keeter, for whom the community of Keeter was named, donated this property for use as a cemetery in 1891. While Keeter's daughter, Leonah, is thought to be buried here, he left this area and is believed to buried in Hardeman County. At least three veterans of the American Civil War and two veterans of World War II are buried here. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wise County Courthouse — 14 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Chandor Gardens — 23 mi
  A portrait painter's English-and-Chinese garden rooms, blasted and planted from a bare 3.5-acre hillside in Weatherford beginning in 1936, abandoned after 1978 and reopened by the city in 2002.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 23 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 25 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.

More markers nearby

• Cottondale — 5.8 mi
• "Machine Gun" Kelley — 5.8 mi
• Aurora Cemetery — 6.4 mi
• City of Springtown — 6.6 mi