DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Oldham County, there's a patch of ground that carries a name borrowed from somewhere else — and a reputation all its own. Boot Hill Cemetery.
Now, that name didn't spring up from the Texas soil. The marker is clear on that point: it was borrowed from a cemetery in Dodge City, Kansas, back when Dodge City was a resort of buffalo hunters and trail drivers. Somebody heard that name, looked around at what was happenin' out here, and figured it fit just as well.
Maybe better. See, Boot Hill is where they put the men who died with their boots on. That's not a figure of speech — well, it is, but it isn't.
You know what it means. Men who didn't go gentle, didn't go in a bed, didn't go with time to say their piece. They went fast, and hard, and the ground took them.
And often — the marker makes a point of this — without benefit of clergy. No preacher. No words read over them.
Just the earth. Now, the marker doesn't let you forget that alongside those rough-ended souls, law-abidin' and God-fearin' men and women were buried here too. All of them, side by side, under the same sky.
The State of Texas put up a marker in 1936 to make sure nobody drives past and forgets what kind of ground this is. Boot Hill. The name was borrowed.
The stories underneath it are all Texas.
What the marker says
Along with law-abiding and God-fearing men and women were buried here, often without benefit of clergy, men who "died with their boots on". The name was borrowed from a cemetery in Dodge City, Kansas, while it was a resort of buffalo hunters and trail drivers. Erected by the State of Texas 1936