Wallis Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Wallis Cemetery, out in Austin County. Pull up a chair, because this one goes back a good long ways. The settlement that became Wallis didn't start with a railroad or a post office.

It started with two Kentucky natives, William and Lydia Ann Guyler, who arrived in 1859 and put down roots in a place folks called Bovine Bend. William Guyler was not a man who did things halfway. He built a grist mill, a cotton gin, and a saw mill in that community, and on top of all that, he served as the settlement's postmaster.

One family, keeping an awful lot of wheels turning at once. Now, things have a way of changing when a railroad comes through, and in 1880 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway constructed a spur through the area. Guyler sold his land to the railroad company and moved his residence and trading post to the new town that grew up along that line.

That town was named Wallis Station, after Joseph Edmund Wallis, the chief engineer and vice president of the railroad. The community was later renamed simply Wallis. By 1895, the place had grown enough that N.P.

Ward sold four acres of land set aside for cemetery use, and the Wallis Cemetery Association formed right along with it. That association, I'll have you know, continues to maintain the property to this day. The oldest known burial in Wallis Cemetery belongs to Virginia Pennington, who died in 1892, three years before that land was even formally sold for the purpose.

The Guylers themselves are buried there, William and Lydia Ann, the couple who'd been tending this corner of Texas since before the railroad was even a rumor. Also interred is the Reverend Theo Kubricht, M.D., a man who apparently felt called in two directions at once, serving the community as both a local physician and the minister of Wallis Presbyterian Church. And beyond the notable names, the cemetery holds community leaders, farmers, ranchers, railroad workers, merchants, teachers, and veterans of conflicts dating all the way back to the Civil War.

The grounds themselves carry a certain quiet dignity, with interior fencing and obelisks marking the earth. Also known as the Protestant Cemetery, this burial ground has served the Wallis community and its surrounding area since the 1890s. And when you stand there among those obelisks, you're standing in the middle of something the marker says plainly and gets exactly right: a permanent reminder of the struggles, the successes, and the contributions of the early pioneers who built something real out of a place once called Bovine Bend.

What the marker says

Also known as the Protestant Cemetery, this burial ground has served the Wallis community and surrounding area since the 1890s. The earliest settlers in the area were William and Lydia Ann (English) Guyler, Kentucky natives who arrived here in 1859. William Guyler built a grist mill, cotton gin and saw mill in the community which was known as Bovine Bend; he was also the settlement’s postmaster. In 1880, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway constructed a spur through the area. Guyler sold his land to the railroad company and moved his residence and trading post to the new town, named Wallis Station after chief engineer and vice president of the railroad, Joseph Edmund Wallis. The community was later renamed Wallis. In 1895, N.P. Ward sold four acres of land for cemetery use. The oldest known burial in Wallis cemetery is of Virginia Pennington (d. 1892). Others buried here include the Guylers and the Rev. Theo Kubricht, M.D., who was both a local physician and minister of Wallis Presbyterian Church. Community leaders, farmers, ranchers, railroad workers, merchants, teachers and veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War are also among those interred. Cemetery features include interior fencing and obelisks. The Wallis Cemetery Association, formed with the establishment of the burial ground, continues to maintain the property. Today, Wallis Cemetery serves as a permanent reminder of the struggles, successes and contributions of the early area pioneers.