Robert Lee Cemetery

The Handbook of Texas says L. B. Harris and his son-in-law R. E. Cartledge founded Robert Lee on their land and named it for Robert E. Lee, who had once served at Fort Chadbourne. They argued that Hayrick lacked water and lay too far from the county's center. By 1892 Robert Lee had 570 people and twenty businesses, among them a bank and the Coke County Rustler. A rock courthouse built in 1891 was replaced in 1956, and the town incorporated in 1929. It reached 1,391 people in 1988 and serves as the region's oilfield supply center.

What the plaque says

Established in 1891, two years after the founding of the city of Robert Lee. Developers L.B. Harris and Eugene Cartledge, as president and secretary of the Austin and Northern Land and Cattle Company, on Sept. 29, 1891, sold for $1.00 this 11.7 - acre burial ground. Already site of several graves, it was deeded to Hayrick Lodge No. 696, A.F. & A.M., for "sole use as cemetery grounds for the members, relatives, and friends". Later it was named by the lodge. Buried here are 34 Civil War veterans, as well as soldiers of later wars and members of many of the families in Robert Lee. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Chadbourne — 16 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.

More markers nearby

• Locklin Bartholomew Murray — steps away
• Fence-Cutting War — 0.7 mi
• Richard Coke — 0.7 mi
• Coke County — 1.5 mi