Palo Pinto Cemetery

The graves sit in a town that lost its railroad and then found oil. Palo Pinto was the county seat and the only town in the county in 1880, the year the Texas and Pacific laid its tracks past it. Joseph Dillahunty ran the first store and post office, and Charles Goodnight and C. C. Slaughter were among his customers. An ox treadmill was one of the first businesses. Oil came after a test well in 1901, and in 1915 a field near town became, in one historian's words, one of the most productive in the world.

What the plaque says

Palo Pinto Cemetery This cemetery traces its history to 1857 when a 320-acre tract of land was surveyed for the original Palo Pinto townsite. The town was platted in 1858 and one block was laid around an existing cemetery. In 1880 Palo Pinto citizens purchased the graveyard from the county. The oldest legible grave marker is that of George W. Slaughter (May 6, 1843-June 15, 1860). Those interred here include area pioneers, military veterans, Texas Rangers, and prominent Palo Pinto citizens. The Palo Pinto Cemetery Association was organized in 1974 to provide maintenance for the cemetery. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 16 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.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 29 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Courthouses of Palo Pinto County — 0.4 mi
• Old County Jail — 0.4 mi
• Palo Pinto County — 1.3 mi
• George Webb Slaughter — 5.3 mi