Cemetery Chapel

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out on a ten-acre tract of land in Hays County, there's a little chapel that has seen more than its share of goodbyes. The story starts in 1876, when Judy and Shadrach Dixon sold that tract to the San Marcos Cemetery Association.

Ten acres. Quiet land. The kind of place a community sets aside knowing full well what it's for.

Then, about 1890, they built the chapel. Carpenter Gothic, they call the style, and if you know what that means, you're already picturing something spare and earnest and pointed toward the sky. Board and batten construction, a cruciform plan, Gothic arched openings.

Somebody put real intention into that building. It wasn't thrown up in a hurry. It was shaped to hold weight, the kind of weight that grief brings through a door.

And grief did come through that door. Civil War veterans were mourned inside those walls. Then Spanish American War veterans.

Then men who'd served in the First World War. Generation after generation, the community gathered, and the little chapel held them. Memorial services, funerals, the whole solemn procession of years.

That carpenter Gothic chapel is still standing out there on those ten acres in Hays County, quiet as ever, still keeping its vigil over the people it never forgot.

What the marker says

This cemetery is located on a ten-acre tract of land sold by Judy and Shadrach Dixon to the San Marcos Cemetery Association in 1876. Built about 1890, this carpenter Gothic chapel has been the scene of many funerals and memorial services over the years, including those of Civil War, Spanish American War, and world War I veterans. Of board and batten construction, it features a cruciform plan and Gothic arched openings. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973