Boot Hill Cemetery
McMullen County, McMullen County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Began with grave of a suicide. Some occupants are: Dick Gosset, killed in Ft. Ewell gunfight, Feb. 1869. E.M. Crain, Confederate veteran; one of 4 cholera victims, 1869. John Smithwick, murdered, 1870. Jim--, assassinated from door of old Rock Store, 1872. Unknown, killed in gun battle while standing in front of old Rock Store, 1873. Unknown, killed unintentionally by Clabe Young, while playing a prank. S. Glenn Greer (12/7/1848-11/9/1874) thrown from a horse. Unknown, a Negro drowned in the Nueces, 1875. Unknown, murderer of James Minter, presumed to have been a Dalton gang member. Lige Harrison, Jr., killed at age 17 in a hunting accident, 1876. Samuel Wm. McCreery, murdered at his sheep ranch, 1877. Pemanio Palacios and Phelix Wheeler (infant), both died of natural causes. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This lonely South Texas graveyard earned its grim frontier nickname the hard way. Its occupants, chronicled on the marker, include men killed in gunfights at Fort Ewell and outside the old Rock Store, cholera victims from an 1869 outbreak, a boy thrown from a horse, and a suspected member of an outlaw gang — a roll call of violent and untimely deaths from the 1860s and 1870s. The very first grave belonged to a suicide.
Why it matters
"Boot Hill" cemeteries capture the raw lawlessness of the post-Civil War frontier, where sudden death by gun, disease, or accident was a defining feature of daily life.
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Nearby & related markers
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