DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The town of Rocksprings, out here in Edwards County, traces its beginnings to 1889 — and it started the way a lot of West Texas stories start, with somebody diggin' for water. A man named J.
R. Sweeten put a shovel in the ground and dug the first water well in the area, giving new settlers something to build a life around. Three years later, in 1892, Sweeten came back to the table with another gift — two acres of land, donated to the community to serve as a cemetery.
Now here's the thing that makes you pause just a moment: the ground was already receiving the dead before anyone called it a cemetery. Two children — Willie J. Blackwell and Ben Smith — had been interred there back in 1891, before the formal designation ever came.
The land already knew what it was for. In those early years, a good many of the people buried at Rocksprings Cemetery weren't locals at all. They were travelers passing through, folks the road caught before they could reach wherever they were headed.
West Texas had a way of doing that. Over time, more than a thousand graves came to fill that ground, and among them are the graves of victims of a tornado that struck the town of Rocksprings on April 12, 1927. Devastating is the word the record uses, and there's no reason to reach for another.
The cemetery grew as the years passed — additional land acquisitions expanding its size to hold all that history. And here's a detail that carries its own quiet weight: the iron fencing that once surrounded some of the grave sites is gone now. Not neglected away, not stolen — donated.
Donated to scrap metal drives during World War II. Even the fences did their part. The Rocksprings Cemetery Association has been watching over this place since 1897, and the state of Texas formally chartered it in 1967.
They've kept on with surveys, landscaping, the steady unglamorous work of remembrance. More than a thousand graves, the first water well, two children laid to rest before the cemetery even had a name. Some places earn their history quietly, one layer at a time.
Rocksprings Cemetery is one of those places.
What the marker says
The town of Rocksprings traces its beginnings to 1889, when J. R. Sweeten dug the first water well in the area to serve new settlers. Three years later, in 1892, Sweeten donated two acres of land to be used as a community cemetery. There were some burials at this site prior to its formal designation as a cemetery. Two children, Willie J. Blackwell and Ben Smith, were interred here in 1891. Many of the people buried in the Rocksprings Cemetery in the early years were travelers passing through the area. Among the more than one thousand graves are those of victims of a devastating tornado which struck the town of April 12, 1927. Over the years, additional land acquisitions have increased the size of the cemetery. Iron fencing which once surrounded some grave sites was donated to scrap metal drives during World War II. The Rocksprings Cemetery Association, which originated in 1897, was formally chartered by the state in 1967. Through such projects as surveys and landscaping, the association continues to maintain the historic graveyard, which remains as a visible link to the community's past. (1989)