Tehuacana Cemetery

Tehuacana was a settlement before it was a graveyard. Families from Hondo Canyon in Bandera County arrived about 1870, and in 1872 they built a schoolhouse that served as church and community center, with a music room soon added by Perry Wilson. A Methodist Episcopal church formed in 1875 in the homes of Perry and Levi Wilson, and a gristmill and blacksmith shop followed in the early 1880s. Children from Moore Hollow attended school here until 1881. Smallpox struck in the 1880s, and local tradition says the second outbreak emptied the community.

What the plaque says

Tehuacana Cemetery Original 1.86 acre site given by James E. and Amanda R. Bandy. First burial was in 1875. Community acquired adjoining 3.6 acres in 1880 for a log church and a day, writing, and music school; added 6.2 acres in 1881 for a frame parsonage and church called Wilson Chapel and Salem Sunday School. Tehuacana Church moved to Medina County in 1900. Buried here are early pioneers: victims of 1882-1884 smallpox epidemics; twelve Confederate veterans; Levi Wilson, one of three original church trustees. 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frio Pioneer Jail Museum — 14 mi
  Pearsall's 1884 county jail, the town's oldest building, used for 83 years and now a free museum with a sheriff's home downstairs and six cells above.
• Landmark Inn State Historic Site — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• Moore Catholic Cemetery — 7.0 mi
• Moore Cemetery — 7.6 mi
• Frio Town — 12 mi
• Spanish Exploration in Medina County — 12 mi