Cross Cut Cemetery
Brownwood vicinity, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlement began in this area of Brown County after the Civil War when several families from southern states moved here. They formed a community, initially known as Cross Out. It became Cross Cut in 1897 when an error was made on a post office application. Caroline Pentecost Elsberry was the first person buried in this community cemetery in July 1879. The two-acre plot of land dedicated as a graveyard is believed to have been donated by Mark and Sarah Pentecost. Oil was discovered in 1923 in the Cross Cut sand formation. The small town quickly swelled to accommodate the increase in population and several new businesses were added. By 1940 the population of the town was exceeded by the number of burials in the cemetery. In 1954 the Cross Cut School consolidated with Cross Plains Schools, and the town declined thereafter. Only a few buildings and the cemetery remain. Among those buried here are early settlers and their descendants, and veterans of conflicts from the Civil War through the Vietnam War. A cemetery association was formed in 1976, and a perpetual care trust was established. The site continues to serve the area. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Southern families settling here after the Civil War formed a community first called Cross Out, renamed Cross Cut in 1897 by a clerical error on a post office application. The cemetery began in 1879 with the burial of Caroline Pentecost Elsberry. An oil strike in 1923 briefly swelled the town, but by 1940 the dead outnumbered the living, and after the school consolidated in 1954 only a few buildings and this graveyard remained.
Why it matters
Cross Cut traces the full arc of a Texas boomtown—settlement, oil rush, and decline—leaving a cemetery as the last witness to a community that has all but vanished.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Caroline Pentecost Elsberry
- · Mark Pentecost
- · Sarah Pentecost
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mud Creek Cemetery
Bangs, TX
This hilltop graveyard has served the Thrifty and Fry communities of Brown County for well over a century, its oldest legible burial dating to 1864 and a weathered rock slab hinting at use as early as 1862. Among those laid to rest are pioneer settler Charles Mullins, who brought his family west in 1858, people killed in frontier Indian attacks, and workers caught up in the oil boom of 1926–27. The stones read like a timeline of the West Texas frontier, from first settlement through the derricks of the petroleum age.
Sipe Springs Cemetery
Sipe Springs vicinity, TX
Settlers found seeping spring water here about 1870 and built a milling and ginning town whose very name—pronounced 'seep'—stirred spelling disputes from the start. John C. Smith donated five acres for this cemetery in 1873, and residents added a tabernacle in 1890 that still hosts an annual July homecoming. When an oil boom struck in the winter of 1918, sleepy Sipe Springs swelled toward 10,000 people, complete with an opera house and a pro baseball team, before the boom passed.
John Wesley Malone Home
Brownwood, TX
Pioneer ranchers Modie and Samuel Coggin began this Brownwood house after 1874, but it took its name from John Wesley Malone, who bought it in 1888 and added a second story in 1904. A hardware merchant, Malone was in business with lifelong friend Will H. Mayes, who went on to serve as Texas' lieutenant governor. The grounds even held Brownwood's first public swimming pool, built by Malone's father-in-law.
Bibb Community
Sidney, TX
Bibb sprang up when Anglo cotton farmers settled western Comanche County in the 1870s, and by 1891 seven men platted a proper town of 44 lots. At its height in the 1890s it bustled with cotton gins, general stores, a school, four churches, a broom factory, and Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges. As roads improved and rail bypassed it, the population drained away; today no trace of Bibb remains on the ground.