Lagarto Cemetery

Charles H. Fusselman lies in a cemetery for a town that was already fading. A Texas Ranger sergeant, he died of gunshot wounds on April 17, 1890, aged about twenty-four. The Officer Down Memorial Page says he was shot while trying to arrest cattle thieves and lists him as a deputy U.S. marshal, and the Texas Peace Officers' Memorial in Austin names him on panel C-39-13. Lagarto itself, by the Handbook's count, had 350 people in 1885 and 150 in 1890, after the railroad passed it by.

What the plaque says

Lagarto Cemetery In the early 1870's an unknown traveler died at the home of Samuel and Mary Beall, proprietors of a general store in the ranching town of Lagarto. The Bealls buried the man at a site on their property. In 1876, land surrounding the gravesite was formally set aside as the Lagarto Cemetery when Sam and Mary Beall sold two acres of their land to J.W. Ramey, Cornelius Clay Cox, and T.P. McNeill, trustees for the Lagarto Community Cemetery. The grave of the unknown man is identified only by a caliche rock cover, as are two other burial sites in the cemetery. The oldest marked grave, that of two year old Isabel Harrison, is dated October 12, 1876. Others buried here include Charles H. Fusselman (1866-1890), who was shot in Presidio county while serving as a Texas ranger, and John Pollan (1808-1890), who fought in the Texas war for Independence. Although the population of Lagarto declined after the railroad bypassed it in 1887, its citizens have continued to use the cemetery since the 1870's. Descendants of the town's pioneers still live in the area, which has become the site of development along Lake Corpus Christi. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 6.6 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 14 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Choke Canyon State Park — 35 mi
  A reservoir state park on the Frio River in two units, built after a 1982 dam, with birds, alligators and fishing on land people have crossed for more than 10,000 years.

More markers nearby

• Echo Stagecoach Depot and Post Office — 4.4 mi
• Thomas Henry Mathis Ranch — 7.0 mi
• Town of Dinero — 7.1 mi
• First Baptist Church of Mathis — 7.9 mi