Old Oakland Cemetery

The plaque's Oakland lay about a mile east of the crossroads that became Roans Prairie, named for Willis I. Roan, an Alabamian who reached the headwaters of Rocky Creek about 1841, built a log house and store, and became postmaster in 1849. The Oakland school met on the lower floor of a two-story building whose upper floor served as a Grange hall in the late 1870s. In 1903 the International-Great Northern ran its Madisonville branch through, the town was briefly renamed Steadmanville, and a spur served a quarry whose rock went into the Galveston Seawall.

What the plaque says

Old Oakland Cemetery Founded in 1867 in connection with the Oakland Baptist Church, which stood here until moved to Roans Prairie in 1913. Graves of many pioneers are located here. Oakland was once a popular way-station for the Bates and Black Stagecoach Lines, which ran from Austin to Huntsville until 1880. This road, known as Coushatta Trace, was originally a trail of the Coushatta Indians, a friendly tribe that hunted in this territory. In 1838, a Mrs. Taylor, the last known person killed by Indians in Grimes County, was murdered not far from this site. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 6.3 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.
• Navasota — 15 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 21 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.

More markers nearby

• Shiro Presbyterian Church — 4.3 mi
• Site of a Munition Factory — 5.1 mi
• In Memory of Colonel Benjamin Fort Smith and All Other Pioneers — 6.0 mi
• Grimes County, C.S.A. — 6.0 mi