Maxdale Cemetery

Maxdale was never large. The Handbook places it on the Lampasas River, eight miles southwest of Killeen, with a post office by 1883, when it had twenty people, two churches, a district school and a cotton gin. A general store followed by 1914, and the community peaked at fifty residents in 1925; the post office closed the next year. In 1948 it still had three businesses and two churches, but by 1968 only fifteen people lived there. By 1979 many houses stood empty and a community center had been built a mile east of the old townsite.

What the plaque says

Maxdale Cemetery Established in the 1860s to serve the rural community of Pleasant Grove, this cemetery is one of the oldest in Bell County. Land for the graveyard was given by Frank N. McBryde, Sr., whose 1883 application for a post office for the community resulted in the name change to Maxdale. The earliest documented grave is that of Louisa Marlar (1849-1867), although an 1863 tombstone marks the site of a grave reinterred here from another location. Others interred here include pioneer settlers and veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Korea. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 21 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 26 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Mother Neff State Park — 32 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Oakalla — 5.6 mi
• Boys Ranch of Copperas Cove — 5.7 mi
• Live Oak Cemetery — 6.7 mi
• Youngsport — 6.9 mi