Cowboy Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little room to breathe. This is the story of Cowboy Cemetery, out in McCulloch County, and it starts, as the best stories do, with a legend. According to that legend, the cemetery got its name from a cowboy, just passing through this stretch of country, who died here and may have been the very first soul laid to rest on this ground.

May have been. The marker says legend, and we'll honor that word, because what comes next is something the record actually knows. W.G.S.

Hughes, born 1851, and his wife Sarah, born 1854, donated the land for this cemetery. And the reason why cuts right to the heart of it. In 1882, their four-year-old son William died.

William Hughes is the cemetery's first recorded burial. Think about that. A mother and a father, grieving a child not yet old enough to finish growing, turned their grief outward and gave the land so others would have a place too.

They didn't stop there. They gave an additional acre for a school. Sarah Hughes lived until 1945, long enough to see the next chapter.

In 1932, she and her family deeded another four point six five acres to the Cowboy Cemetery Association, and that group has been caring for this ground ever since, overseeing improvements and keeping the history of the Deep Creek Community right where it belongs. So maybe it started with a nameless cowboy passing through. Maybe it started with a little boy named William.

Either way, the people who stayed made sure it endured.

What the marker says

Cowboy Cemetery According to legend, this cemetery's name is a reference to a cowboy who died while passing through this area and may have been the first interred here. It is known that W.G.S. Hughes (1851-1925) and wife Sarah (1854-1945) donated the land for this site, likely upon the 1882 death of their four-year-old son, William, the cemetery's first recorded burial. They gave an additional acre for a school. In 1932, Sarah Hughes and family deeded another 4.65 acres to the Cowboy Cemetery Association. This group has since overseen many improvements and cared for this burial ground that records the heritage of the Deep Creek Community. Historic Texas Cemetery-2001