Valley Spring Cemetery

Valley Spring grew from the ranch of O. C. J. Phillips, whose family settled here in 1854; the place was first known as Phillips Ranch. In 1860 his son, W. O. Phillips, opened a cotton gin and sawmill whose steam whistle earned the name Whistleville, and Davie Owen's rival mill and gin, less than a mile away, was nicknamed Bugscuffle. The 1878 post office went to Bugscuffle and was named for the area's many springs. When the Llano-Brady stage route moved in 1882, Owen built a store on the new road, where the town stands today.

What the plaque says

Valley Spring Cemetery This hilltop cemetery has served the local community since 1867 when Martha Epperson Eaker and Hattie Phillips, daughters of pioneer settlers in the area, were buried here. Burials continued, and in 1877 the Epperson family donated land for the "benefit and convenience of San Fernando Valley." Cemetery trustees acquired another acre in 1889, the deed referring to the "old graveyard west of the Valley Springs." Renowned pioneer physician Dr. W. Y. Fowler (1860-1935), who began his 46-year Llano County practice at Valley Spring in 1889, acquired the surrounding ranch in 1897 and provided additional land for the cemetery. More than 100 graves in this cemetery are marked only with a rock or unlettered stone; many are believed to be those of young children. Forty headstones record a birthdate prior to Texas statehood in 1846. Veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II also are buried here. Cemetery maintenance, dependent on volunteers, resumed with the formal organization of the Valley Spring Cemetery Association in 1994. Improvements include water piped to the site, and many trees and plants added for beautification. The "old graveyard" continues to serve the families of Valley Spring. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Llano County Courthouse Square — 12 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 24 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 25 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.
• Fort Mason — 25 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.

More markers nearby

• Community of Valley Spring — 0.8 mi
• Valley Springs Primitive Baptist Church — 3.9 mi
• Salem Cemetery — 4.9 mi
• Chew Cemetery — 8.4 mi