Leesburg Cemetery

Carroll Shelby was buried in Leesburg Cemetery after his death on May 10, 2012, the Handbook of Texas says. The same entry explains the town around it: Leesburg was named for the John Lee family, and a post office called Leesburgh opened in 1874, the year the town came second to Pittsburg in the county seat vote. The railroad made it a station in the late 1870s. By 1896 about 300 people lived here, with two churches and two schools. The school district was consolidated with Pittsburg by 1955, and the population had dropped to seventy-five by 1968.

What the plaque says

Leesburg Cemetery Dwight Hays Townsend (1834-1906) donated land for this cemetery about 1870. The graves of two children which were relocated here from the Leesburg schoolyard are thought to be the earliest burials on the site. The oldest marked grave is that of Tapley Wylie (1836-1870). This cemetery is the primary burial ground for the rural community of Leesburg. Those interred here include pioneer settlers, community leaders, a large number of infants and children, and veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. (1992) Leesburg Cemetery Established 1870 Historic Texas Cemetery - 2009

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 4.6 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Daingerfield State Park — 23 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 25 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.

More markers nearby

• Carroll Hall Shelby — steps away
• Reeves Chapel — 4.4 mi
• New Mine Baptist Church — 4.8 mi
• The Ezekiel Airship — 7.0 mi