DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and it's a story worth hearin'. Way out here in Dallas County, there was once a world unto itself. Three thousand acres of land, worked and lived on by whole communities of people, under a sky that didn't much care where you came from — though the men who ran the place certainly did.
This is the story of Dallas County Trinity Farms, and the cemetery that outlasted everything else. From about 1915 to 1946, this stretch of Dallas County was a vast commercial farm known as Trinity Farms — and it was no small operation. Three thousand acres.
The land had been farmed for many years before the Trinity Farms Company took shape. That company was owned by three men: E. P.
Harwell of Tulsa, Oklahoma; C. H. Clark of Wichita Falls, Texas; and T.
H. Harbin of Waxahachie, Texas. It was Harbin who actually lived out here, in a large white ranch house, and ran the day-to-day operation.
The farm went by another name too — Rancho Grande. Now, Trinity Farms wasn't just a farm. It was a world.
The Trinity Farms Company provided housing for laborers and their families. It ran schools. It kept a general store and commissary.
Everything a person might need was right here on those three thousand acres — which, if you think about it, meant you didn't have much reason to leave. And for many of the people who came here, leaving hadn't exactly been easy to begin with. The farm laborers consisted mostly of Mexican citizens — many of whom had arrived during the Mexican Revolution — and a sizable number of African Americans.
Two communities, side by side, working the same soil. But the line between them was drawn firmly and deliberately. Their children attended separate schools.
And when the time came to be laid to rest, the cemetery received them in separate sections too — one for Hispanics, one for African Americans. The earliest recorded burials in that cemetery occurred in the early 1920s. The last burial came in the early 1940s — just a few years before the farm itself ceased to be, around 1946.
A whole community rose up here, lived, labored, buried its dead — and then, more or less, disappeared. The houses are gone. The commissary is gone.
The schools are gone. Rancho Grande itself is gone. What remains is the cemetery.
And here's what'll stay with you: it is maintained to this day by descendants of the families interred here. The people who worked those three thousand acres didn't leave a deed or a ledger or a grand monument. They left each other — and their children remembered.
That cemetery isn't just the last remaining physical reminder of Trinity Farms. It's proof that a community existed here at all. And some things, it turns out, are harder to erase than three thousand acres of farmland.
What the marker says
This cemetery represents the last remaining physical reminder of the community of people who worked and lived on a vast commercial farm here known as the Dallas County Trinity Farms from about 1915 to 1946. The farm covered about 3,000 acres of land which had been farmed for many years. Dallas County Trinity Farms was one of several large farms owned by E. P. Harwell of Tulsa, Oklahoma, C. H. Clark of Wichita Falls, Texas, and T. H. Harbin of Waxahachie, Texas. The Trinity Farms Company provided housing, schools, and a general store/commissary for use by the farm laborers and their families. Farm laborers consisted mostly of Mexican citizens, many of whom arrived during the Mexican Revolution, and a sizable number of African Americans. Harbin lived in a large white ranch house and operated the farm which was also known as Rancho Grande. The earliest recorded burials occurred in the early 1920s. The children of Hispanics and African Americans who worked on the farm attended separate schools. Similarly, the cemetery contains separate sections for Hispanics and African Americans. The last burial occurred in the early 1940s. The cemetery is maintained by descendants of the families interred here. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995