DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Bexar County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding stories since the eighteen-forties — and friend, some of those stories go all the way back to the founding of Texas itself. This is the Ruiz-Herrera Cemetery, started in the eighteen-forties and still used to this day by the founding families who put it there.
Let that settle for a moment. Still used. Some ground just refuses to let go of the people who matter.
Now, if you walk among those graves, two names are going to stop you cold. The first is Francisco Antonio Ruiz. In 1836 — that year, that particular year in Texas, when everything was on fire and the future was anybody's guess — Francisco Antonio Ruiz was serving as acting mayor.
His father and his uncle had signed the Declaration of Independence. The weight that man carried in his name alone. And there he rests, in a cemetery his family helped start, in soil that knew him.
The second name you'll find is Blas Herrera. And here is where the story gets the kind of quiet that falls over a campfire when somebody says something true. Blas Herrera is the man who alerted the Alamo defenders to Santa Anna's approach.
You think about that ride, that warning, what it meant to be the one who knew what was coming — and you understand why his name belongs in the ground alongside Francisco Antonio Ruiz. Two graves. Two men.
One small cemetery in Bexar County that has been keeping their company since the eighteen-forties. Some places earn the right to last. This one earned it.
What the marker says
Started in 1840's; still used by founding families. Graves include those of Texas patriots Francisco Antonio Ruiz, 1836 acting mayor, whose father and uncle signed Declaration of Independence; and Blas Herrera, who alerted the Alamo defenders to Santa Anna's approach. (1967)