Pioneer Cemetery

The Hebrew Benevolent Association bought land nearby in 1872 after the sudden death of a young Jewish man, Adolph Deutchner, the city's landmark nomination says; it became Dallas's first Jewish cemetery. The nomination also records that a Confederate monument dedicated in 1896, paid for by fundraising led by the Daughters of the Confederacy, was moved here in 1961 for a freeway. In 1948 the City Council declined to maintain the ground, calling it private property. In 1999, archaeologists found fifteen graves in an expansion area and they were reinterred nearby.

What the plaque says

Pioneer Cemetery The area now known as Pioneer Cemetery is composed of the remnants of four early graveyards. The graves, dating from the 1850s, include many of Dallas' early settlers and civic leaders. Two of the graveyards that now make up Pioneer Cemetery were associated with early Dallas fraternal organizations. The earliest marked grave in the section once known as the Tannehill Lodge No. 52 Masonic Cemetery is that of Elizabeth McPherson, who died in 1853. R. P. Rogers (d. 1852) is the oldest known interment in the section once belonging to Dallas Lodge No. 44 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Some of the land nearby was once used as a cemetery by the Hebrew Benevolent Association. The property was deeded to Congregation Emanuel in 1912, and in 1956, the graves were moved to the Emanuel Cemetery. The fourth section, known as Old City Cemetery, was formally deeded to the city of Dallas in 1871. Its oldest marked grave, that of John Henry Long, is dated 1870. The last burials in what is now called Pioneer Cemetery took place in the latter part of the 1920s. The monuments that have remained over time are significant reminders of the history of the city of Dallas. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 0.5 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 0.8 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 0.8 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 2.1 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Crockett, John McClannahan — steps away
• Nicholas Henry Darnell — steps away
• Juliette Abbey Peak Fowler — steps away
• James W. Latimer (Weck) — steps away