Center Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Center Cemetery in Wheeler County. Now, every good Texas story starts with somebody willing to bet everything on a patch of ground, and D. M.

Pollard was exactly that kind of man. In 1906, he bought the south half of section 30, block A-7 of the H&GN survey, and he didn't move into a house or a farmstead. He moved into a dugout.

That's right, a hole in the earth, carved out of the Panhandle ground itself, with the sky for a neighbor and the wind for conversation. That's where this story begins. A man, a dugout, and a piece of the Texas Panhandle that didn't give anything away easy.

By 1909, something remarkable had taken root near that homesite. A school opened, the Center School, and out here on the rolling plains where community was everything, a school was never just a school. It hosted church services too, because when you've got a building and people willing to gather, you use it for everything that matters.

And right there, on the adjoining property to the west, the Center Cemetery was dedicated. The oldest marked grave belongs to B. F.

Matthews, dated March 1909, the very same year that school opened its doors. Think about that for a moment. A community was being born and a community was already beginning to bury its own, both in the same calendar year.

That's the Panhandle for you. It doesn't wait around. A survey of the cemetery recorded 34 marked graves, and among those, 13 are marked unknown.

And the marker notes something quietly sobering: there are indications of additional unmarked graves, people who rest there without a name above them, without a date, without a stone. Two of the known veterans buried here are Elisha Powell, who served in the Civil War, and Alvin David Fellingham, who served in World War II. Two men, two different centuries of American conflict, both finding their final rest in the same corner of Wheeler County.

Now here's the part that lands soft but lands deep. Descendants of D. M.

Pollard still own land around that cemetery. The man who came out here in 1906 and dug himself a home out of the Panhandle earth, his people are still there. The marker says the cemetery reflects the hardships faced by settlers of the Texas Panhandle, and it does, every stone, every unknown marker, every unmarked patch of ground tells that story.

Some places hold history. Center Cemetery holds the people who made it.

What the marker says

In 1906, D. M. Pollard bought the south half of section 30, block A-7 of the H&GN survey and lived in a dugout. Near his homesite, the center school opened in 1909. The school also hosted church services, and the Center Cemetery was dedicated on the adjoining property to the west. The oldest marked grave, for B. F. Matthews, dates from March 1909. A survey recorded 34 marked graves with 13 marked unknown. There are indications of additional unmarked graves. Elisha Powell (Civil War) and Alvin David Fellingham (World War II) are two known military veterans interred here. Descendants of D. M. Pollard still own land around the cemetery, which reflects hardships faced by settlers of the Texas Panhandle. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2011