Cataline Cemetery
Canadian, Hemphill County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Cataline community predates Hemphill County’s organization. Families moving to this area established the county’s first school (1885) and church (1887). A post office opened in Feb. 1887, five months before the county organized. In March 1896, infant Emma Turner died, and a small hill with a view to the Washita River valley was chosen for her burial. The Methodist Episcopal Church bought three acres from the State of Texas to officially establish the community burial ground in July 1896. The site attests to hardships in a remote community; burials here include nine children under age one. The cemetery, which features granite and iron gravestones and interior fencing, remains as the last historic vestige of Cataline. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2009
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Cataline community took root in the Texas Panhandle before Hemphill County was even organized, its settlers raising the county's first school in 1885 and its first church in 1887. When infant Emma Turner died in 1896, mourners chose a hill overlooking the Washita valley for her grave, and the Methodist Episcopal Church soon bought three acres to formalize the burial ground. With nine of its graves belonging to children under a year old, the cemetery is a quiet testament to the hardships of remote frontier life—and the last surviving trace of a vanished community.
Why it matters
It preserves the memory of a lost frontier settlement and the steep human cost paid by the families who first opened the Panhandle to farming.
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Related people
- · Emma Turner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Eller Flat Cemetery
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