Crown Hill Cemetery
Pasadena, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Permanent settlement of this area began about 1891. Lot sales in the new town of Pasadena began in 1893, and the town was officially platted three years later. The first recorded burials in this vicinity occurred about 1894, although the exact locations of the graves are unknown. This graveyard, originally known as Pasadena Cemetery and the town's only community burial ground, was established in 1906 on a knoll overlooking Vince's Bayou and Buffalo Bayou. The first person buried here was E. P. Pomeroy, who died on October 24, 1906. Those interred here include many of Pasadena's early settlers and community leaders, and veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. The graveyard became known as Crown Hill Cemetery following World War I, possibly as a result of its proximity to the Crown Central Refinery. It has also been referred to as the Mexican Cemetery due to the numbers of Mexican-American farmers who were interred here beginning in the 1920s. Although surrounded by 20th-century industrial development, this cemetery survives as a link to the area's pioneer heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As permanent settlers arrived near Buffalo Bayou in the 1890s, the new town of Pasadena needed a place to bury its dead, and this knoll overlooking Vince's Bayou became its community graveyard in 1906. Renamed Crown Hill after World War I, likely for the nearby Crown Central Refinery, it holds veterans of four American wars and generations of early settlers and community leaders. It also became a resting place for Mexican-American farm families beginning in the 1920s, earning it the name the Mexican Cemetery.
Why it matters
Ringed today by industrial development, the cemetery preserves the layered memory of a pioneer town and the diverse working families who built it.
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Related people
- · E. P. Pomeroy
Themes & tags
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