Prairie View Cemetery

The Gum Springs settlers lived on the Aaron F. Boyce survey, patented to Boyce's heirs on September 30, 1850. It lies at the headwaters of Berry Creek, where permanent springs gave steady water, and the settlers called the place Springs before Gum Springs. W. T. Gann came from Missouri in 1855 and later sold the land where Briggs stands. Between 1870 and 1890 many more families arrived from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, the Carolinas and Alabama to farm this blackland section of Burnet County.

What the plaque says

Prairie View Cemetery Pioneer settlers in this vicinity met together for worship services in the Gum Springs Schoolhouse until 1892, when Stephen Taylor deeded land at this site for church and cemetery purposes. This historic cemetery began in the churchyard of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, South, (also known as Prairie View Church) in the early 1890s. The earliest documented grave in the cemetery is that of Scottish native James Smith (1836-1892), who immigrated to Texas in 1884. Those interred here include pioneer settlers; a number of infants and small children; and veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Korea. The Prairie View Church moved to Briggs in 1906 and became the Briggs Methodist Church. The congregation later was dissolved, and the members attended worship services in neighboring communities. The church building was moved to Lampasas in 1951 and converted into a parsonage. The Prairie View Cemetery serves as a physical reminder of the area's pioneer heritage. the Prairie View Cemetery Association, organized in 1977, provides maintenance for the historic graveyard. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 19 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Hancock Springs Park — 21 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Inks Lake State Park — 28 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 29 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.

More markers nearby

• The Community of Briggs — 2.1 mi
• Mahomet-Sycamore Springs Community — 3.0 mi
• Mount Horeb Lodge — 3.1 mi
• Mahomet Cemetery — 3.3 mi