McNeil Cemetery

The church that gave the cemetery its first name took it from local springs with an odd taste. The Sour Springs post office, open from 1857 to 1880, was named for water high in sodium carbonate; the community later became Soda Springs. The springs ran 6.3 liters per second in 1946 and only 0.13 by 1975. The McNeil Creek Baptist Church was founded in June 1888, and in 1905 McNeil had a one-teacher school for fifty-seven White students and another for forty-five Black students, consolidated with Luling's schools in 1948.

What the plaque says

McNeil Cemetery (Soda Springs Methodist Cemetery) This cemetery was founded on land deeded to the Soda Springs Methodist Church about 1867 by early settler Margret Hinds. The first recorded burial was that of Henrietta Gant in 1868. The cemetery was first known as Soda Springs Methodist Cemetery but was renamed McNeil Cemetery sometime before Soda Springs Methodist Church disbanded in 1919. Among the more than 390 grave sites in the cemetery are many of the area's early settlers and their descendants. the cemetery is maintained by an association and continues to serve the McNeil community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 13 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 24 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.

More markers nearby

• Edgar B. Davis, Oil Pioneer-Philanthropist — 3.8 mi
• City of Luling — 4.0 mi
• Rosenwald School — 4.2 mi
• Episcopal Church of the Annunciation — 4.2 mi