Rossville Cemetery

Captain Tom Ross, son of John and Maria Antonia Ross, grew up near here and joined the Texas Rangers at about 23. A family history says he was sent to Langtry on undercover duty for the 1896 Fitzsimmons-Maher heavyweight fight. He later commanded Company B at Ysleta, lost a leg to a gunshot and kept working, and in 1907 was sent to Amarillo against bootleggers, a job that stirred local anger and may have ended in his 1910 resignation. He finished as a federal court interpreter in San Antonio and died in 1946.

What the plaque says

Rossville Cemetery Texas statesman Jose Antonio Navarro (1795-1871) transferred land here along the Atascosa River to his eldest son Jose Antonio George Navarro. J.A.G. Navarro (b.1819) then gave 160 acres here to his daughter Maria Antonia Navarro (1845-1922) in 1870, on the occasion of her marriage in San Antonio to Scotsman John C. Ross (1839-1925). One acre at this site was reserved for a cemetery. Ross and his brother William subsequently founded the community of Rossville here after 1873. The first burial was that of Juana Chaves Navarro (1820-1874), wife of J.A.G. Navarro. Other pioneers who lived in this area before the founding of Rossville are buried here. Their family names include Alvarez, Bergara, Castanon, Cruz, Galindo, Gonzales, Tabberer, Tober, Riojas, and Stokes. Confederate veteran Clemente Galindo (1844-1881) and his wife Martha Goins Galindo (1845-1903) are buried here along with many of their descendants. By the 1920s the road to the graveyard was often impassable, so John Ross was buried in the family plot at the Episcopal Church Cemetery (1 mi. E). His wife Maria Antonia is buried here, near their home site. Other Navarro, Chaves, and Ross descendants are also buried here, including Texas Ranger Captain Tom Ross (1871-1946), son of John and Maria Antonia Ross. (1986) Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Atascosa County Courthouse — 15 mi
  The only surviving Mission Revival courthouse in Texas, built in 1912-13 on Jourdanton's town circle after a county seat vote that some residents still call a theft.
• Longhorn Museum — 16 mi
  Atascosa County in one roadside museum: longhorn-and-mustang ranching, a moved railroad depot and caboose, a horse-drawn hearse and the town that calls itself the birthplace of the cowboy.
• Landmark Inn State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A store and stage stop at the Medina River ford in Henri Castro's Alsatian town, with a mill race under the ground and rooms you can still rent for the night.
• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 21 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.

More markers nearby

• Rossville — 0.9 mi
• Edward Brown — 2.8 mi
• James Washington Winters — 7.2 mi
• Amphion and Amphion Cemetery — 7.5 mi