Oatmeal Cemetery

Oatmeal's name has two stories. One holds that it altered the name of a Mr. Othneil, who owned the first gristmill; the other that it translated the name of a German family, Habermill, who spent a season or two by the creek in 1849. The post office opened in 1853, the county's first orchard grew here, and its only cheese press ran here. After the Civil War formerly enslaved people settled along a straight lane in the east part of Oatmeal, a place called Stringtown, with a church and school and the only all-Black cemetery in the county.

What the plaque says

Oatmeal Cemetery Some of the earliest pioneers of the Oatmeal community are interred in this cemetery. The oldest documented burials are those of Mary Smith and her year-old daughter, Fanny, both of whom died on September 16, 1854. Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Roundtree deeded the two acres of land containing the cemetery in 1871. Among those interred here are veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. An additional land acquisition in 1983 enlarged the cemetery to three acres. A cemetery association formed in 1945 maintains the historic graveyard. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 5.2 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 16 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Lake State Park — 17 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 18 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Mount Zion Cemetery — 2.8 mi
• The Village of South Gabriel — 2.8 mi
• Bertram — 3.7 mi
• Bertram School — 3.9 mi