Smelter Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, and I'll warn you now, it's a short tale but it carries some weight. Somewhere in El Paso County, there is a piece of ground that's been holding its secrets since 1882. That's the year Smelter Cemetery was established.

Eighteen eighty-two. Think about what that year means out here in far West Texas. The land was raw, the work was hard, and when people went into that ground, they went in without much ceremony and with even less guarantee that anyone would still be talking about them a century later.

But here's the thing about cemeteries. They're patient. They wait.

Smelter Cemetery waited, and in 2015 it received recognition as a Historic Texas Cemetery. The ground remembered, even when the rest of the world moved on. That's the whole of it, friend.

A place established in 1882, honored in 2015. Sometimes the story is simply this: somebody was here, and now we know it.

What the marker says

Established 1882 Historic Texas Cemetery - 2015