City of Sundown Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the City of Sundown Cemetery, out in Hockley County. Now, every good story has a beginning, and this one starts with land. The city of Sundown itself developed on land that was once part of the C.C.

Slaughter Ranch, and that ranching legacy runs right up to the edge of this story. In 1931, Slaughter's son Bob gave property for the creation of a burial ground, and from that time forward, the site has served as the City of Sundown Cemetery. A gift of land, and with it, a responsibility.

The first marked grave belongs to Winne Dell Hines Simmons, who passed in April of 1933. That name, that date, the very first stone in a place just getting its footing. Then, in 1962, two organizations came together to do something quiet and lasting.

The Sundown Garden Club and the Sundown Volunteer Fire Department planted trees around the perimeter of the original section. Think about that pairing for a moment. Gardeners and firefighters, side by side, setting roots into the earth.

Those trees still ring the place today. The cemetery has expanded over the years, growing as the city grew, and if you walk through it and read the names on the stones, the marker tells you something worth pausing on. Many of those graves are those of oil field workers, evidence, plain and simple, of Sundown's oil boom period.

The land gave up cattle, then it gave up oil, and through it all, this ground kept its other purpose. Holding the people who built the place.

What the marker says

The city of Sundown developed on land that was once part of the C.C. Slaughter Ranch. In 1931, Slaughter’s son Bob gave property for the creation of a burial ground, and the site has served as the City of Sundown Cemetery since that time. The first marked grave is that of Winne Dell Hines Simmons (d. April 1933). In 1962, the Sundown Garden Club and Sundown Volunteer Fire Department planted trees around the perimeter of the original section of the cemetery, which has been expanded over the years. As evidence of the city’s oil boom period, many graves are those of oil field workers. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2006