DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place, so let's get into it. Picture Galveston, 1870. A group of people with a plan and a purpose come together and form the Magnolia Grove Association.
They've got their eyes on a ridge — this ridge, right here — and they intend to build a cemetery atop it, one that would serve the entire community of Galveston. They divide the land into twenty-five sections. Members purchase their individual plots.
And on June 20, 1870, the cemetery is formally established. Clean. Official.
A place for the community to rest. Now, if you know anything about Galveston Island, you already feel what's coming. A storm struck in 1875 and severely damaged the cemetery grounds.
What the storm started, time finished — the graveyard fell into disrepair soon after. By 1878, all cemetery property except those previously purchased burial plots had been repossessed. The association, not long after that, went bankrupt.
And then came the hardest part — the graves of members of as many as twenty-two families were removed to other graveyards. Twenty-two families. Think about that for a moment.
And yet, burials continued in some sections of the cemetery for several years. People kept coming back to this ground. By 1900, after several land transactions, much of the original cemetery had become the property of B.
E. Mann and T. A.
Cobb. And then — well, 1900 brought another storm, and the cemetery was damaged again. But here's something worth holding onto: photographs taken in 1922 still reveal many gravestones standing here.
All those years, all those storms, and there were still stones in the ground bearing names. Then 1941 arrives, and the city of Galveston exhumes the remaining marked gravesites as it begins development of an airport. The marked ones.
What had been a cemetery for the whole community of Galveston is cleared away for a runway. But the story doesn't quite end there. In 1986, the Galveston City Council set aside a section of the original cemetery as a permanent green space.
After storms and bankruptcy and exhumations and decades of transactions, this piece of ground got to keep something of itself. That ridge the Magnolia Grove Association chose back in 1870 — some part of it still belongs to what it was.
What the marker says
The Magnolia Grove Association, formed in 1870, made plans to establish a cemetery atop this ridge to serve the entire community of Galveston. The land chosen was divided into 25 sections. Association members purchased individual plots and on June 20, 1870, the cemetery was formally established. A storm that struck Galveston Island in 1875 severely damaged the cemetery grounds. The graveyard fell into disrepair soon after the storm. All cemetery property except previously purchased burial plots was repossessed in 1878. Shortly thereafter the association went bankrupt and the graves of members of as many as 22 families were removed to other graveyards. Nevertheless, burials continued in some sections of the cemetery for several years. By 1900 and after several land transactions, much of the original cemetery became the property of B. E. Mann and T. A. Cobb. Although the cemetery was again damaged in the storm of 1900, photographs reveal many gravestones here in 1922. In 1941 the city of Galveston exhumed the remaining marked gravesites as it began development of an airport. A section of the original cemetery was set aside as a permanent "green space" by the Galveston City Council in 1986.