Oakwood Cemetery (Austin, Texas)

Historic cemetery in Travis County, Texas

United States historic place

City Cemetery

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

The entrance to the cemetery off Comal Street

Location| 16th & Navasota
Austin, Texas, US
Coordinates| 30°16′36″N 97°43′35″W﻿ / ﻿30.27667°N 97.72639°W﻿ / 30.27667; -97.72639
MPS| East Austin MRA
NRHP reference No.| 85002297[1]
Added to NRHP| September 17, 1985

Oakwood Cemetery, originally called City Cemetery, is the oldest city-owned cemetery in Austin, Texas. Situated on a hill just east of I-35 that overlooks downtown Austin, just north of the Swedish Hill Historic District and south of Disch-Falk Field, the once-isolated site is now in the center of the city.

## History

[edit]

The Oakwood Cemetery Chapel

The cemetery was established in 1839. Its oldest currently-standing monument commemorates two victims of a Comanche attack who perished in 1842.

The cemetery was renamed Oakwood in 1907 per city ordinance. It spreads over 40 acres (160,000 m2), including an annex across Comal Street to the east established in 1914, and includes sections historically dedicated to the city's black, Latino, and Jewish populations. Paupers were historically buried in unmarked graves on the cemetery's south side. Graves without permanent markers were subject to reburial after a given period.

In 1914, the Oakwood Cemetery Mortuary Chapel was built on a design by Texas architect Charles Henry Page as a site for memorial services. The chapel was later renovated and remodeled in 1944 under the direction of local architect J. Roy White.[2]

The cemetery became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1972 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985; its annex was added on October 30, 2003. The view of the Texas State Capitol from Comal Street in the center of the cemetery became one of the Capitol View Corridors protected under state and local law from obstruction by tall buildings in 1983.[3] Despite its protected status, the cemetery had been subject to crime, vandalism, and decay for decades until significant restoration efforts began in the mid 2010s.

## Notable burials

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* Wilmer Allison (1904–1977) – Tennis player
* L. C. Anderson (1853-1938) - Principal of Prairie View A&M University (1885-89), educator and first president of the Colored Teachers State Association of Texas
* John Barclay Armstrong (1850–1913) – Texas Ranger (Hall of Fame), U.S. Marshall, and rancher. Captured the notorious killer John Wesley Hardin.
* Richard Bache Jr. (1784–1848) - Representative for Galveston in the Senate of the Second Texas Legislature in 1847 and assisted in drawing up the Texas Constitution of 1845
* Thomas N. Barnes \- (1930–2003) Fourth Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force
* Annie Webb Blanton \- (1870–1945) – First woman elected to statewide office in Texas. Served as State Superintendent for Public Instruction (1919–22)
* Albert S. Burleson \- (1863–1937) – United States Postmaster General (1913–21)
* Florence Anderson Clark \- (1835–1918) – author, newspaper editor, librarian, university dean
* Dabney Coleman \- (1932-2024) - Emmy and Golden Globe winning film and television actor; best known for the films 9 to 5, On Golden Pond and Cloak & Dagger; in addition to the television series Recess and Boardwalk Empire.
* Oscar Branch Colquitt (1861–1940) – Governor of Texas (1911–15)
* Susanna Dickinson (1814–1883) – Survivor of the Battle of the Alamo
* Hardaway Hunt Dinwiddie (1844-1887) - 4th President of Texas A&M, founding member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity
* John Crittenden Duval (1816–1897) – "Father of Texas Literature"
* John Henry Faulk (1913–1990) – Radio personality
* Rebecca Jane G. Fisher (1831–1926) - The only woman elected to the Texas Veterans Association and its last surviving member. The first woman to have her portrait hung in the Senate Chamber at the Texas Capitol.
* George Washington Glasscock (1810-1868) - Early settler, legislator, and businessman. Namesake of Georgetown, Texas.
* James M. Goggin (1820–1899) – CSA army officer
* Thomas Green (1814–1864) – American Civil War general
* Thomas Watt Gregory (1861–1933) – US Attorney General (1914–19)
* Andrew J. Hamilton (1815–1875) – Governor of Texas (1865–66)
* Morgan C. Hamilton (1809–1893) – U.S. Senator (1870–77)
* John Hancock (1824–1893) – Member of the United States House of Representatives (1871–85)
* Ima Hogg (1882–1975) – Philanthropist, activist, socialite and patron of the arts
* James S. Hogg (1851–1906) – First native-born Governor of Texas (1891–95)
* William H. Holland (1841-1907) - Former slave, Member of the 15th Texas Legislature, co-founder of Prairie View A&M University
* John Garland James (1844-1930) - 2nd President of Texas A&M, founding member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity
* Jacob Kuechler (1823–1893) — German immigrant, surveyor, conscientious objector during the Civil War
* George W. Littlefield (1842–1920) – Cattleman, banker, University of Texas Regent
* John Lomax (1867–1948) – Pioneering musicologist, author and folklorist.
* Reuben Shannon Lovinggood (1864-1916) - African-American newspaper editor, classical scholar and 3rd president of Samuel Huston College, now Huston-Tillotson University (1900-16)
* Hermann Lungkwitz (1813–1891) — Painter and photographer
* Henry Green Madison (1843–1912) – First African-American City Councilman of Austin
* Jane Y. McCallum (1877-1957) - Suffragist, activist, politician and longest serving Texas Secretary of State (1927-33)
* John Marks Moore (1853–1902) — Secretary of State of Texas (1887–91)
* Nimrod Lindsay Norton (1830–1903) – Confederate officer and politician, later prominent businessman
* Charles Henry Page (1876–1957) - Prominent architect of many Texas county courthouses and the chapel at Oakwood Cemetery
* Elisha M. Pease (1812–1883) – Governor of Texas (1853—57, 1867–69)
* Gene Ramey (1913-1984) - Jazz musician, double bassist for Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie and others.
* Oran M. Roberts (1815–1898) – Governor of Texas (1879–83)
* James T. Robison (1861–1929) – Texas Land Commissioner (1909-29)
* John J. Terrell (1857–1920) – Texas Land Commissioner (1903–09)
* Ben Thompson (1842–1884) – City Marshal of Austin
* William M. Walton (1832–1915) – Attorney General of Texas (1866–67)
* Charles S. West (1829–1885) – Texas Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of State of Texas
* Andrew Jackson Zilker (1858–1934) - Businessman, philanthropist and prominent local landowner who donated both Barton Springs and the land that would become Zilker Park to the City of Austin.

In addition, three victims of the unidentified serial killer dubbed the Servant Girl Annihilator are buried in Oakwood; Eula Phillips (1868-1885) and Susan Hancock (1840-1885), who were both murdered the night of December 24th, 1885; and Rebecca Ramey (1839-1909), who survived an earlier attack in which her daughter Mary was killed.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "NRHP nomination form" (PDF). Texas Historical Commission.
2. ^ "City of Austin Cemeteries – Introducing the Master Plan Process" (PPT). City of Austin. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
3. ^ "Downtown Development and Capitol View Corridors" (PDF). Downtown Austin Commission. June 27, 2007. Retrieved November 10, 2017.

## External links

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oakwood Cemetery (Austin, Texas).

* Official Website for Oakwood Cemetery Chapel [1]
* Austin Chronicle – "City of the Dead"
* U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Oakwood Cemetery
* U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Oakwood Cemetery Annex
* Oakwood Cemetery at Find a Grave
* Austin History Center, Oakwood Cemetery Database
* Plat of Old Section of City Cemetery (1911)

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