Eller Flat Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place. Out in eastern Hemphill County, there is a stretch of ground that has been holding the memory of a community for well over a century. It goes by two names.

Some call it Eller Flat Cemetery. Some call it Prairie Dell Cemetery. And the story of how it came to be starts, as so many of the oldest stories do, with a loss.

The year was 1895. A child named Dora Calhoun, an infant, was the first to be interred here. And a man named George W.

Little, a landowner in what was then a thriving little place called Eller Flat, donated the property for her gravesite. That is the kind of act a community remembers. The kind that quietly says: we are going to be here a while.

We are going to need this ground. The years moved along. In 1905, Charles H. and Jesse Rutter purchased Little's land.

They could have fenced it off, turned their backs on what had come before. They did not. They continued to allow community residents to use the burial ground.

That matters. That is the quiet kind of generosity that holds a place together. By 1912, the Eller Flat Cemetery Association stepped up and purchased the property outright.

At that point, the ground already held about thirty-five graves. Thirty-five lives. Thirty-five stories.

Then in 1917, residents built Prairie Dell School, sitting about seven-tenths of a mile to the west. School and cemetery, the two anchors of a community's life, close enough to see each other across the flat. Today, the Eller Flat Cemetery, or Prairie Dell Cemetery, call it what you will, still serves the people of that country.

Started with one infant in 1895, and it has never stopped. That is what it means to put down roots in Texas.

What the marker says

Also known as Prairie Dell Cemetery, this burial ground has served eastern Hemphill county since 1895, when Dora Calhoun, an infant, was interred here. George W. Little, a landowner in the then-thriving Eller Flat community, donated property for her gravesite. Charles H. and Jesse Rutter purchased Little’s land in 1905, and continued to allow community residents to use the burial ground. In 1912, the Eller Flat Cemetery Association purchased this property, which contained about 35 graves. By 1917, residents built Prairie Dell School (0.7 mi. W), which became associated with the cemetery. Today, Eller Flat (Prairie Dell) Cemetery continues to serve area residents. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2008