Alice Cemetery
Alice, Jim Wells County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground has served Alice-area residents for more than 100 years, and the story of its genesis and ongoing use involves many individuals in the community’s history. By the late 1880s, Frederic B. Nayer lived in this area, then part of Nueces County. The Collins community had about 2,000 residents by 1891, but the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad Co. built through the area three miles west of the town to intersect the Texas Mexican Railway. Nayer helped sell lots at the rail intersection for the new townsite that would become Alice, and in 1903, he donated the land for the city burial ground, initially called Alice Fraternal Cemetery. In 1925, the Alice Cemetery Association formed and the name of the burial ground changed. Martha Fawcus served as the association’s first president. Under her leadership in 1952, members planted 100 oak trees that more than 50 years later remained a defining feature of the site. Individuals buried at the cemetery include prominent citizens of Alice’s past, military veterans, Texas Rangers and generations of community residents. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When two railroads crossed three miles from the old Collins community in the 1890s, a new town called Alice sprang up at the junction, and Frederic B. Nayer—who had helped sell its lots—donated ground for a burial place in 1903. First called the Alice Fraternal Cemetery, it was renamed after a cemetery association formed in 1925 under its first president, Martha Fawcus, who led the planting of a hundred oaks that still shade the grounds. Prominent citizens, veterans, and Texas Rangers rest among generations of South Texas families.
Why it matters
The cemetery marks how the railroad remade South Texas, drawing an entire community to a new junction town and leaving its dead as the enduring record of that migration.
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Related people
- · Frederic B. Nayer
- · Martha Fawcus
Themes & tags
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