Rush Creek Community Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Out here in Wise County, there's a place called Rush Creek, named for a stream that flowed right through this land. In its day, the community had a school, two churches, and a cemetery.

Small, yes. But alive. Now, the oldest recorded burial in that cemetery belongs to Harry Houston, an infant, son of John and Mary Houston, who died in 1875.

That's where the record begins. And from that first small grave, the ground would go on to hold a hundred and ten souls. Here's the part that'll settle heavy on you if you let it: nearly half of those graves, nearly half, belong to children under twenty years of age.

You let that sink in the next time you pass a quiet stretch of Texas prairie. Veterans rest here too, men who served in the Civil War and in World War I, soldiers and farmers and families, all layered into the same red earth. Then came the 1930s.

Land erosion did what hard times often do, it pulled families away. The community of Rush Creek declined, and eventually it was gone. The school, the churches, the life of the place, faded.

But that cemetery? Still active. Still tended.

The descendants of those buried here have kept it up, keeping faith with every name in that ground, from Harry Houston, that infant boy, all the way down the long row of years. Some places earn their quiet. Rush Creek earned every inch of it.

What the marker says

Named for a stream that flowed through the area, the community of Rush Creek contained a school, two churches, and a cemetery. The oldest recorded burial is that of Harry Houston, infant son of John and Mary Houston, who died in 1875. The site contains 110 graves; nearly half are those of children under 20 years of age. Also buried here are veterans of the Civil War and World War I. Rush Creek community declined in the 1930s when families left due to land erosion. Still active, the cemetery is maintained by descendants of those buried here. (1998)