Rowe Cemetery

Alfred Rowe was born in Lima, Peru, in 1853 to English merchant parents, studied at the Royal Agricultural College in Gloucestershire and reached Donley County in 1878 with 500 pounds to invest. Unlike most foreign investors, he lived for a time on his ranch. In 1901 he married Constance Ethel Kingsley and brought her to the RO, but in 1910 the family moved to England for good. Returning for one of his twice-yearly visits in April 1912, he sailed on the Titanic and died of exposure in the North Atlantic. His family sold the RO in 1917.

What the plaque says

Rowe Cemetery Historically significant for its associations with rancher Alfred Rowe and the now-extinct community of Rowe, this burial ground is a reflection of early area farming and ranching efforts and the harshness of pioneer life as permanent settlement came to the Panhandle. With help from cattleman Charles Goodnight, Englishman Alfred Rowe (1853-1912) established the RO ranch on Skillet Creek in 1880, and within ten years had amassed 100,000 acres of land and more than 10,000 head of cattle. His encouragement and support aided the development of Rowe, named in his honor, as a commercial center on the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway line. Kentucky native Isaac Smith, in whose home the Rowe post office was established in 1892, set aside part of his land for use as a community cemetery in 1898, after the death of four children in the Beedy family. Originally located in the family garden, the children's graves were moved to the Rowe cemetery upon its establishment. Even after the community of Rowe moved one mile southeast in 1907, to become the town of Hedley, this cemetery continued to serve as the primary burial ground for area residents. Isaac Smith's grandson, W. I. Rains, provided additional acreage for the Rowe cemetery during the 20th century, and by 1999 there were more than 1,500 marked graves here. A veterans memorial placed in 1990 and the graves of 32 victims of the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 lend additional significance to the Rowe cemetery. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saints' Roost Museum — 13 mi
  Clarendon's county museum in the hospital Cornelia Adair built for JA cowboys in 1910, named for the nickname cowhands gave a Methodist town with no saloons.
• Donley County Courthouse — 13 mi
  Bulger and Rapp's red brick and white stone courthouse of 1891, the oldest in use in the Panhandle, given back its third floor and towers in a 2003 restoration.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 24 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 24 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• James T. Patman — 12 mi
• Clarendon Cemetery — 12 mi
• Old Mobeetie Trail — 12 mi
• The Clarendon News — 13 mi