Mount Marion Cemetery

The cemetery shares a name with a coal mine. William W. Johnson was vice president of the Mount Marion Coal Mining Company, organized in 1902; the Strawn entry in the Handbook of Texas says the shaft was sunk in 1903 and then sold to Fort Worth interests, who formed the Strawn Coal Mining Company. It merged with a mine at Lyre, three miles north, in 1914. The mines produced 1.6 million tons between 1910 and 1920, and payrolls reached $75,000 a month. Diesel ended the railroad market, though the Strawn mine survived until 1946.

What the plaque says

Mount Marion Cemetery Located on land once owned by William W. Johnson, whose coal mining operations spurred major development in nearby Thurber, this cemetery was named for Johnson's daughter, Marion, who died at age three. It later became the primary burial ground for the town of Strawn. The earliest documented burial dates to 1883. Interred here are many area pioneers, including town founder Stephen B. Strawn, former Texas Rangers, veterans of wars from the Civil War to World War II, and victims of the devastating 1918-19 influenza epidemic. It is a reflection of the area's heritage. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 21 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.
• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 32 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.

More markers nearby

• Mary Jane Gentry — steps away
• Bethel Strawn — 0.8 mi
• James Nesbit Stuart House — 1.0 mi
• Mingus Baptist Church — 4.4 mi