City of Sundown Cemetery
Sundown, Hockley County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The city of Sundown developed on land that was once part of the C.C. Slaughter Ranch. In 1931, Slaughter’s son Bob gave property for the creation of a burial ground, and the site has served as the City of Sundown Cemetery since that time. The first marked grave is that of Winne Dell Hines Simmons (d. April 1933). In 1962, the Sundown Garden Club and Sundown Volunteer Fire Department planted trees around the perimeter of the original section of the cemetery, which has been expanded over the years. As evidence of the city’s oil boom period, many graves are those of oil field workers. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The town of Sundown rose on land that had been part of the sprawling C.C. Slaughter Ranch, and in 1931 the rancher's son Bob Slaughter donated ground for a community burial place. The first marked grave, that of Winnie Dell Hines Simmons, dates to 1933, and many who rest here were oil field workers drawn by the region's petroleum boom. Local garden club and volunteer firefighters planted the perimeter trees in 1962 as the grounds expanded.
Why it matters
The cemetery records the swift transformation of the West Texas plains from open cattle range into an oil-boom community within a single generation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · C.C. Slaughter
- · Bob Slaughter
- · Winnie Dell Hines Simmons
Related events
- · West Texas oil boom
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Oil Well in Hockley County
Sundown, TX
On April 6, 1937, the Texas Company brought in Hockley County's first producing oil well, flowing over 500 barrels a day from more than 5,000 feet down on land the Guerry family had bought from the sprawling Slaughter ranch empire. It opened the vast Slaughter field, and in the decades that followed the county's wells numbered in the thousands and yielded hundreds of millions of barrels of crude. The strike transformed a stretch of West Texas ranchland into part of the great Permian Basin oil province.
City of Levelland
Levelland, TX
Surveyed and platted in 1912 as "Hockley City" by cereal magnate C. W. Post, this barren High Plains townsite won the race for county seat in 1921 — the first meeting of county officers reportedly held inside a Cadillac. Early Levelland made do with a 16-by-32-foot temporary courthouse, a well, and a community black-eyed pea patch, before the railroad arrived in 1925 and oil was discovered nearby in 1937.
The Spade Ranch
Smyer, TX
Isaac Ellwood, who made a fortune as one of the inventors and manufacturers of barbed wire, bought this vast South Plains range in 1889 from the veteran cattlemen D.H. and J.W. Snyder. Branded with the "Spade," the ranch was first stocked with calves from Ellwood's southern Renderbrook Spring holdings and eventually stretched fifty-four miles across several Panhandle counties before farmland sales moved its headquarters in the 1920s. Ellwood's descendants still own and operate it today.
Brownfield Municipal Power Plant
Brownfield, TX
In the 1920s, when much of rural Texas still lacked electricity, newly incorporated Brownfield resolved to modernize. After voters first rejected a bond, determined residents formed a light and ice company—a common pairing, since early power plants often ran the town's ice works—and won approval for a municipal plant in 1921. By 1923 Brownfield had electric power, and the plant served the community until 2003 before being kept on as a distribution control center.