Ochiltree Cemetery

The cemetery outlasted the town it was laid out for. The Handbook of Texas says Ochiltree got its post office in September 1886 and by 1915 had about 500 people, a bank, a school, two or three churches and two newspapers, the Eagle Investigator and the Ochiltree News. The James Whippo family organized a community orchestra, and chautauquas, movies and automobile races filled the calendar. After 1920 Ochiltree was an unorganized community, and its post office was discontinued in September 1921.

What the plaque says

In 1902, Jim McLarty and J. V. Stump fenced off 90 acres for a cemetery in the town of Ochiltree. Soon afterwards, Jim was thrown from his horse and killed, and at age 21 became the first person buried in the cemetery. In 1927 the county acquired the deed from Mr. J. M. Blasingame; in 1930 a cemetery association was formed. During the Depression of the 1930s an entry gate was built with help from the Works Progress Administration. Veterans of the Civil War and Spanish American wars, as well as World Wars I and II and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, are among the citizens buried here. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Plains — 9.1 mi
  Perryton's four-acre museum of the wheat country at the top of Texas, with an 1899 depot, five historic buildings and a life-size Hank the Cowdog, whose author grew up here.
• Canadian River Wagon Bridge — 34 mi
  The longest pin-connected bridge in Texas, 3,255 feet of Parker trusses across the Canadian River at Canadian, built for wagons in 1916 and reopened as a footpath in 2000.

More markers nearby

• Ochiltree Townsite — steps away
• Sheriff James Sidney Talley — 0.4 mi
• Site of the Trading Post — 6.6 mi
• Colonel William B. Ochiltree — 8.0 mi