Counts Cemetery
Winters, Runnels County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Earliest known interment was that of a child, Mary Louisa Hale, on November 30, 1880. In January, 1884, Andy and Christian Fannin sold 4 acres to M. C. Bright, J. M. Carter, R. F. Counts, John A. Chambers, J. M. Givens, D. W. and William Hale, Alf A. Hanscomb, J. T. Hardegree, P. Hawkins, F. B. Massengale, Jesse Rogers, and C. C. Simmons as a public cemetery for the rural community of "Content". The plot was named for R. F. Counts, who bought the surrounding property in 1889. An additional 4 acres were donated by Sidney Bright in the 1930s. An unknown number of Confederate veterans of the Civil War are buried here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Counts Cemetery grew from the rural community once known as "Content" on the West Texas frontier, its earliest recorded burial a child laid to rest in 1880. In 1884 more than a dozen local men purchased four acres for a public burial ground, later named for R. F. Counts, whose family owned the surrounding land, with more acreage added in the 1930s. Among those interred are an unknown number of Confederate Civil War veterans who had come west to build new lives in Runnels County.
Why it matters
Frontier cemeteries like this one map the quiet arrival of settlers—and aging war veterans—into the sparsely populated ranchlands of West Texas after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · R. F. Counts
- · Mary Louisa Hale
- · Sidney Bright
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Tucked into the West Texas ranch country of Runnels County, Content Cemetery opened in 1883 with the burial of a cowboy named James Hanna, a fitting first for a landscape then given over to cattle and open range. Among those who followed was his kinsman John A. Hanna, a Confederate veteran of the 8th Texas Cavalry in the Army of Tennessee, laid to rest in 1889 alongside siblings, in-laws, and infant grandchildren. The dozen 19th-century graves gather a single frontier family across a generation of hard living.
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