Sweetwater Cemetery

Sweetwater's early years were hard, the Handbook of Texas says. With no bank in town, the saloon of Chiflet and Gilliot was rumored to hold up to $20,000 in residents' cash, and a February 1883 raid on it killed both owners and wounded a bystander, N. I. Dulaney. The next month Thomas Trammell and others founded a bank. The town incorporated in 1884, 1897 and 1902. A blizzard in 1885 killed 90 percent of the area's livestock, the disastrous drought of 1886-87 followed, and by 1890 Sweetwater had half the people it had in 1884.

What the plaque says

The oldest marked grave in this public burial ground is that of an infant, Purl Ray Scott, who died in 1880. It predates the founding of the town of Sweetwater of the Texas and Pacific Railroad by one year. Handcrafted tombstones and wrought iron fences are prominent features of the graveyard. Sweetwater Cemetery contains the burial sites of pioneers, immigrants, community leaders, and Civil War veterans. It is a reminder of the hardships of pioneer life and an important reflection of the history of the community. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pioneer Museum — 1.6 mi
  Nolan County's settlement story in a dozen rooms of Judge R. A. Ragland's 1906 house in Sweetwater, a town that started as a dugout store for buffalo hunters and a post office called Blue Goose.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 2.4 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 26 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.

More markers nearby

• Texas & Pacific Railway — 1.2 mi
• S.D. Myres — 1.3 mi
• Nolan County — 1.3 mi
• W.A.S.P. (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) Training Base: Avenger Field — 1.3 mi