Polonia Cemetery

Polonia arrived late in Polish Texas. Panna Maria in Karnes County, founded on Christmas Eve 1854, was the first permanent Polish colony in the United States; Polonia's first families came near Lockhart in 1891, nearly four decades later. At its height the community had a church, two schools, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop and a general store, and its school was consolidated with the Lockhart district in 1949. County highway maps of the 1980s still marked the place, but only by the cemetery.

What the plaque says

Polonia Cemetery The three-acre tract of land that was the Polish settlement of Polonia was deeded to Bishop John Neraz of the Catholic Diocese of San Antonio in 1894 by Joseph and Veronica Dzierzanowski. The community was founded one year after the death of Simon Dzierzanowski (1853-1896), who was the first to be buried in his family's cemetery on this site. The settlement once boasted a cotton gin, blacksmith shop, general store, and the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Schools for both English and Spanish speaking students were built. The Polish population retained many traditions from their homeland. Polonia declined in the late 1930s because of a failing farm economy. The Catholic church was razed in 1939. The Dzierzanowski Family Cemetery, now Polonia Community Cemetery, is the last reminder of the once vibrant village. Twenty-five percent of those buried in the cemetery are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. The first known families of Polonia, settling near this site from 1891, were Bienek, Boniewiez, Bonkowski, Dedek, Dikowski, Dykowski, Dzierzanowski, Foerster, Foryszewski, Grabarkewitz, Kalinowski, Krzgwosinski, Levandowski, Malinowski, Petroski, Pieniazek, Reisner, Scholwinski, Slawinski, Urbanski, Wacluwczyk, Wisniewski, Zaleski, Zarrasky, Zawadski, and Zolewski. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 4.4 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 14 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 17 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Texas State Cemetery — 23 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.

More markers nearby

• Susanna Dickinson Hannig - Messenger of the Alamo — 4.3 mi
• Caldwell County — 4.4 mi
• Andrew Lee Brock — 4.6 mi
• Battle of Plum Creek — 4.6 mi