Lane Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'll tell it to you. Now, I'll be straight with you, friend. Some markers give you a flood.

Names, battles, scandals, characters who'd fill a novel. And then there's this one. Lane Cemetery, Caldwell County.

Established 1872. That's what we've got. That date, and the quiet fact that in 2002 it was designated a Historic Texas Cemetery.

But don't let the brevity fool you. A cemetery established in 1872 means people were already living out here, already building something, already losing something. That's 1872, which is early days in this part of Texas, and somebody thought enough of this ground to set it apart, to say, this place is for remembering.

Whatever was happening around them, whoever the Lanes were, this patch of Caldwell County earth became the kind of place communities make when they intend to stay. They don't always get a long inscription. Sometimes a name and a year and a piece of consecrated ground is the whole story that survives.

Lane Cemetery has been holding that story since 1872, and it's still holding it now.

What the marker says

Established 1872 - Historic Texas Cemetery 2002