Palacios Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Palacios Cemetery, out there in Matagorda County. Now settle in, because this one's got layers. Every community has a place where it keeps its memory, and Palacios is no different.

This cemetery dates to the very beginnings of the town itself. And the story of how it came to be starts, as these stories sometimes do, with a loss. In 1905, just three years after the founding of Palacios, a woman named Alice Singer died.

That death gave rise to the need for a community cemetery. A whole town's worth of grief, and no place yet to put it. Now, the land itself has a past worth noting.

It was once part of the estate of Texas Cattle Baron A.H. "Shanghai" Pierce. That name carries some weight in these parts. The Texas Rice Development Company and the Palacios Townsite Company donated that land to the city for use as a cemetery.

The plot was surveyed in 1907. Additional land was acquired in 1918, and then again in 1983, because a community keeps growing, even in its resting place. Sit just west of the original townsite and you'll find a variety of monuments marking those graves.

Simple wooden crosses. Carved angels. Large granite stones.

The full range of what people reach for when words aren't quite enough. In 1963, local posts of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars erected a large monument to honor U.S. military veterans. And those veterans are here in number.

Soldiers from six wars rest in this ground: the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Six wars. Think on that for a moment.

And then there's this. Among the grave markers here, you'll also find stones marking the graves of Vietnamese refugees, a number of whom settled in Palacios and other Texas coastal towns after 1975. People who crossed an ocean and found, at the end of everything, a place along the Texas coast to call home.

Palacios Cemetery sits on donated land, surveyed and expanded across the decades, and it holds within it the full sweep of what this community has lived through and who has chosen to be part of it. That's the kind of ground you walk carefully on.

What the marker says

The primary burial ground for citizens of Palacios, this cemetery dates to the beginnings of the community. The death of Alice Singer in 1905, three years after the founding of Palacios, gave rise to the need for a community cemetery. The land, which was once a part of the estate of Texas Cattle Baron A.H. "Shanghai" Pierce, was donated to the city for use as a cemetery by the Texas Rice Development Company and the Palacios Townsite Company. The plot was surveyed in 1907, and additional land was acquired in 1918 and 1983. Located just west of the original townsite, the cemetery's grave sites are marked with a variety of monuments, from simple wooden crosses and carved angels to large granite stones. A large monument to honor U.S. military veterans was erected in 1963 by local posts of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. Soldiers and veterans of six wars are buried here -- The Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Additionally, stones marking the graves of Vietnamese refugees, a number of whom settled in Palacios and other Texas coastal towns after 1975, can be seen here. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986