Washita Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out in Hemphill County, there's a place called Washita, and if you're looking for what remains of that community today, you're looking at a cemetery. That's the primary remaining historic evidence of the whole thing.

Anglo pioneers started settling the area in the late 1870s and early 1880s, putting down roots on that Texas prairie, and little by little the community took shape. They got themselves a school. They got a church.

They even got a post office, which in those days meant you had arrived as a proper place on the map. Washita was becoming something. Then 1912 came.

A little girl named Winifred Thompson, infant daughter of Roy Thompson, passed away. And in that grief, the community faced something it hadn't reckoned with yet. There was no cemetery.

No consecrated ground to receive her, or anyone who would follow. That need didn't go unanswered for long. A man named Dr.

M.L. Caldwell donated one acre from the southeast corner of his property, set it aside for exactly that purpose. From 1912 on, prominent citizens of Washita and the surrounding communities have been laid to rest there.

The school is gone. The church is gone. The post office is gone.

But those graves remain, quiet and patient, keepin the names of the families who first settled Washita. Sometimes a cemetery is the last thing a community has left to say: we were here.

What the marker says

This community burial ground is the primary remaining historic evidence of the Washita community. Anglo pioneers began to settle the area in the late 1870s and early 1880s. As the community grew, members established a school, church, and a post office. After the 1912 death of Winifred Thompson, infant daughter of Roy Thompson, there came a need for a community cemetery. Dr. M.L. Caldwell donated one acre in the southeast corner of his property to be used for such purposes. Since 1912, prominent citizens of Washita and surrounding communities have been laid to rest in the cemetery. Its graves provide a record of those families who first settled the Washita community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2010