HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Baker Cemetery

Magnolia, Montgomery County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Baker Cemetery Established CA. 1855 Historic Texas Cemetery-2008

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Baker Cemetery took root around 1855, in the years when Anglo settlers were spreading across the pineywoods and prairies of what became Montgomery County, Texas. A burying ground like this one usually marks the anchor of an early rural community, the first permanent claim a family made on the land. Its designation as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2008 recognizes more than a century and a half of continuous local memory.

Why it matters

Pioneer cemeteries are often the last surviving trace of the frontier settlements that turned raw Texas land into towns and farms.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionFrontier HistoryLandmark

Nearby & related markers

Spring Creek County

Tomball, TX

Because the Republic of Texas capped its Congress at 40 members, sixteen new "judicial" counties—Spring Creek among them—were created in 1841 to provide courts and local government without adding congressmen. Established at the petition of 130 residents, Spring Creek County stretched along its namesake creek toward a planned seat named Greenville and elected a full slate of officials in May 1841. The Republic's Supreme Court struck the judicial counties down as unconstitutional in 1842, and the land reverted to Harris and Montgomery counties.

Rose Hill Methodist Church Building

Tomball, TX

The Rose Hill Methodist congregation built this vernacular Gothic sanctuary in 1888 to replace an original frame church from 1876, funding it through special offerings. With its arched windows and arched transom over the front door, the building served as the congregation's principal place of worship until 1968, its storm-damaged steeple rebuilt in 1962.

Oklahoma Cemetery

Conroe, TX

Local tradition holds that the settlement earned the name 'Oklahoma' when a man who announced he was moving to Oklahoma instead settled near here. George W. Snook and his wife Bonnie set aside the first acre for a burial ground after their young daughter Jessie died in 1894, choosing a spot near a storm-uprooted tree she had last visited. Her uncle John Henry Goodson donated another acre in 1903, and the cemetery has since doubled in size while chronicling the families of this corner of Montgomery County.

Oklahoma School

Magnolia, TX

Pioneer farm families settled the Oklahoma community in the mid-to-late 1800s, shipping their crops and livestock from the nearby Hufsmith rail station. Valuing education, they built the first one-room school by 1880 with a small donation and family-donated land, using it as both schoolhouse and church. Successive buildings followed, and after students transferred to Tomball and then Magnolia in the 1930s and 1940s, the schoolhouse lived on as a community center and polling place.