Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Cemetery began in 1866, when community leaders chartered the Evergreen Cemetery Association because the old burial ground near the center of Paris was too small. The first purchase was sixteen acres from George Wright, with more land added in 1893, 1907, 1956 and 1957. The first burial is attributed to Lucy Pope Maxey, who died in 1866, mother of Samuel Bell Maxey, who lies here too. Texas Monthly's guide puts the burials at about 40,000.

The stonecarving is the draw. A Texas Historical Commission marker lists angels, cotton bales, broken trees, anchors, a life-size buffalo and a replica of the front page of the Paris Morning News. Willet Babcock's monument, a robed figure with cowboy boots showing under the hem, went up in 1882, a year after his death. Cotton magnate John J. Culbertson has a mausoleum, and saloon owner D. H. Moore, 27, killed in a gunfight, has a cross from his wife.

Myrtle Vance, three years old, also has a large headstone here. She disappeared in January 1893, and Henry Smith, a Black laborer, was accused of her murder. On February 1, 1893, a crowd estimated at 5,000 to 15,000 watched him tortured and burned alive, after he was paraded through town, without a trial. Ida B. Wells investigated and concluded the rape accusation was false. Governor James Hogg urged the sheriff to hold Smith for trial; the sheriff said he was helpless, and no one was held accountable.