DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of Glazier Cemetery, out in Hemphill County. It starts the way so many Panhandle stories do: a railroad arriving and a town springing up almost overnight. The year was 1887, when the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway reached the site, and just like that, Glazier had itself a reason to exist.
Sitting north of the Canadian River, the town turned out to be an ideal shipping point for area cattle — and here's the thing about that river location: even when flooding made the Canadian impassable, Glazier could still move livestock. That's no small advantage in country where the weather writes its own rules. The town put down roots slowly but steadily.
A post office came to Glazier in 1906, which tells you the community had grown enough to need one. And that same year, 1906, the earliest known burials were being made in what would become Glazier Cemetery — the town building itself up above ground and, as towns always must, marking its losses below. By 1910, the Glazier Cemetery Association was organized enough to make it official.
They purchased two and a half acres — well, two point four, to be exact — from a man named J.F. Johnson. The price?
Twenty-five dollars. The land that would hold the town's memory, secured for twenty-five dollars. Now, Glazier had already weathered the hard years of frontier life, but 1916 brought a cruelty of a different kind.
A fire started in a feed mill and virtually destroyed the town's entire business district. You can imagine what that meant for a small Panhandle community — the commercial heart of the place, gone. And then came 1947.
A tornado. Twelve lives claimed. Twelve.
For a small town that had already been knocked down once, that was more than a blow — that was a wound that doesn't fully close. Glazier Cemetery stands out there still, on those 2.4 acres that once changed hands for twenty-five dollars, holding 1906 and every year that followed — the cattle drives and the post office days, the fire, the tornado, and all the quieter losses in between. Some ground carries more history than it was ever asked to hold.
What the marker says
The town of Glazier was founded in 1887 when the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway reached this site. Because of its location north of the Canadian River, Glazier was an ideal shipping point for area cattle, even when flooding made the river impassable. A post office was established in Glazier in 1906. In 1916, a fire which started in a feed mill virtually destroyed the town’s business district. A tornado claimed twelve lives in 1947, delivering another major blow to the small town. The earliest known burials in Glazier Cemetery were made in 1906. The Glazier Cemetery Association purchased 2.4 acres from J.F. Johnson in 1910 for the price of twenty-five dollars. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2008