Shiloh Community

The plaque calls the cemetery a reminder of Shiloh. It is also where James Earl Rudder is buried, according to the Handbook of Texas. Born at Eden in 1910, Rudder commanded the Second Ranger Battalion, whose men scaled the 100-foot cliffs at Pointe du Hoc under fire on D-Day, with a casualty rate above 50 percent. He was wounded twice, became vice president of Texas A&M in 1958 and president in 1959, and headed the whole A&M system from 1965. He died in Houston on March 23, 1970.

What the plaque says

Shiloh Community Settled in the 1860s by Czech, German, and Polish immigrants, the Shiloh community was an area of large family farms. In addition to homes and farms, the settlement at one time boasted a community center, a two-room school, a vineyard, a mill, and a blacksmith shop. The families of Shiloh community maintained a cooperative relationship, often helping each other with planting, harvesting, barn building, and other activities. In 1883, to coordinate assistance efforts and group purchases of farm supplies, they formed the Slavonic Agricultural and Benevolent Society, which still exists in reorganized form as the Shiloh Club. The community later was completely encompassed by the City of College Station. Mrs. William G. Rector deeded land at this site to the local Methodist Church in 1870 for use as a community cemetery. The property later was acquired by the City of College Station, which established a larger city cemetery around the original Shiloh Graveyard. Although little remains of the Shiloh community, this cemetery serves as a reminder of a once-thriving settlement. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 2.8 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Navasota — 20 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 20 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• A&M College Consolidated Rural School — 1.2 mi
• African American Education in College Station — 1.5 mi
• Texas A&M University — 1.9 mi
• Early Texas A&M Campus Housing — 1.9 mi