Harlingen Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm followin' the words carved right there on the official Harlingen Cemetery marker, so let's let the stone do the talkin'. Now, every town has its stories. Some of them are written in deed books, some in courthouse records.

But the deepest stories, the ones that don't get argued over, are written in the ground. The Harlingen Cemetery came into legal existence in 1912. That's the official date.

A man named Lon C. Hill, born in 1862, founder of the city of Harlingen itself and president of the Harlingen Land and Water Company, sold seven point six acres of land right here at this site. The price?

One dollar. Sold it for one dollar to the trustees of the Harlingen Cemetery. You can make of that what you will.

But here's the thing about that word legal. The ground had already been receiving the dead before any paperwork caught up with it. The first burial here belonged to a teenager named Robert Keen Weems, born in 1893, died in 1909.

He had come to this area in a freight car from Houston. A young man, riding freight, and this is where his journey ended. The cemetery may not have had a legal existence yet, but Robert Keen Weems didn't wait on the lawyers.

And he wasn't the only one. Others who had died even earlier were reinterred here. George Dorough, born in 1868 and died in 1904, was among those brought to this ground after the fact.

So the cemetery, when it finally got its name on paper in 1912, was already carrying history it hadn't officially agreed to carry yet. The land was originally divided into sections. Babies.

Blacks. Anglos. Hispanics.

That was the order of things then, parceled out and separated even in death. Those divisions held until 1947, when the cemetery was deeded to the city of Harlingen. After that, the sections stopped being utilized.

But the tombstone designs, the grave decorations, they still carry those diverse cultural influences right up to the present. The ground remembers even when the policy forgets. And the people buried here, they tell the story of a community buildin' itself from scratch.

James Lockhart, died 1947, Harlingen's first postmaster. Horace Johnson, died 1928, a Cameron County deputy sheriff. David L.

Hinojosa, died 1932, a Texas Ranger. These weren't men passing through on freight cars. These were the people holding the place together while it became something.

Lon Hill sold this ground for a dollar, a teenager from Houston was the first name in the soil, and decades later the town that grew up around it deeded the whole thing to itself. Seven point six acres that started with one dollar and one boy and ended up holding the full weight of a community's history. That's Harlingen.

That's the cemetery. And that's the kind of dollar that never stops paying interest.

What the marker says

The Harlingen Cemetery came into legal existence in 1912. In that year, Lon C. Hill (1862-1935), founder of the city of Harlingen and president of the Harlingen land and water company, sold 7.6 acres of land at this site for one dollar to trustees of the Harlingen Cemetery. Burials, however, had taken place here since the death of Robert Keen Weems (1893-1909), a teenager who had come to this area in a freight car from Houston. Although weems was the first to be buried at the graveyard, others who had died earlier, such as George Dorough (1868-1904), were reinterred here. This cemetery originally was divided into sections for babies, blacks, Anglos and Hispanics. These divisions have not been utilized since the cemetery was deeded to the city of Harlingen in 1947, but tombstone designs and grave decorations still reflect diverse cultural influences. Leaders of the community that have been buried here include James Lockhart (d. 1947), the town's first postmaster; Horace Johnson (d. 1928), a Cameron County deputy sheriff; and David L. Hinojosa (d. 1932), a Texas Ranger. The cemetery serves as a reminder of the surrounding community's rich heritage. (1984, 1997)