Dreamland Cemetery
Canyon, Randall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Originally named Canyon City Cemetery, this burial ground has served the nearby community since early in Canyon's history. In 1891, S.W. Kelley deeded property to Randall County for cemetery use. That same year, the first burials occurred, for William E. McElroy and for Jerry Adams, an African American cowboy who died during a cattle drive. The Civic Improvement League changed the cemetery's name to Dreamland in 1909, and additional acreage was added to the property in 1932 and 1963. Many early pioneers of Randall County, who were mostly farmers and ranchers, are buried here. A number of noted county figures are also interred, including L.G. Connor, the founder of the Canyon City (now Canyon) and prominent financier L.T. Lester. Other prominent early Randall County residents buried here include Judge Burney Slack, E.D. Harrell, John and Margaret Knight, C.R. Burrow and Clyde Warwick. More recent burials include J.A. Hill and J.P. Cornette, West Texas A&M Presidents; Hattie Anderson, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum founder; Margaret Harper, creator of the Palo Duro Canyon outdoor drama "Texas"; and musician Buddy Knox. Others represented here include veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War. Randall County maintained the property until 1957, transferring operations to concerned citizens who formed the Dreamland Cemetery Association. Today, the association continues to care for the historic Dreamland Cemetery, which still serves the residents of Randall County and remains as a testament to the early settlers of Canyon. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2007
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Opened in 1891 as Canyon City Cemetery on land deeded by S.W. Kelley, this Panhandle burial ground received its first two interments that year—including Jerry Adams, an African American cowboy who died on a cattle drive. The Civic Improvement League renamed it Dreamland in 1909, and it grew to hold the founders, financiers, educators, and cultural figures of Randall County, from town founder L.G. Connor to Palo Duro drama creator Margaret Harper and rockabilly musician Buddy Knox. A citizens' association has cared for the grounds since 1957.
Why it matters
Dreamland Cemetery is a roll call of the ranchers, pioneers, and civic builders who settled the Texas Panhandle, from the open-range cattle era into the twentieth century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Texas Panhandle was one of the last great expanses of the American frontier to be settled. Into the 1880s and 1890s this was open-range country — a sea of grass where cattle outnumbered people and the nearest town might be a long day's ride away. Canyon, near the mouth of the dramatic Palo Duro Canyon, took shape as ranchers and farmers began to fasten a permanent community onto that vast landscape.
A town's cemetery is often its oldest institution, and so it was here. In 1891 a man named S.W. Kelley deeded land to Randall County for a burial ground, and the first graves were dug that same year. It was originally called Canyon City Cemetery — a plain, practical name for a plain, practical need on the high plains.
This was the Reconstruction-and-Gilded-Age frontier giving way to the Progressive era, the decades when the Panhandle transformed from open range into a settled country of farms, ranches, colleges, and county seats. The people buried here lived through exactly that transformation, and the cemetery's own growth — renamed and enlarged over the years — traces the community's climb from raw settlement to established town.
People & events
The very first burials tell you what kind of place this was. In 1891 the ground received William E. McElroy and Jerry Adams — the latter an African American cowboy who died during a cattle drive. That single detail opens a window onto the open-range era, when trail crews were genuinely diverse and a Black cowboy's life and death were part of the daily work of moving herds across the plains.
Over the following decades the cemetery filled with the people who built Randall County. There lies L.G. Connor, remembered as the founder of Canyon itself, alongside financiers, judges, and the pioneer farm and ranch families whose names recur through the county's early records. In 1909 the Civic Improvement League gave the grounds a gentler name — Dreamland — and the county added acreage as the community grew.
What makes Dreamland remarkable is the sheer range of lives gathered in one place. Later generations brought presidents of the region's university and the founder of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. Here too rests Margaret Harper, who created the beloved outdoor drama "Texas" staged in Palo Duro Canyon, and the musician Buddy Knox. Veterans of America's wars, reaching back to the Civil War, lie among them. A citizens' association took over care of the grounds in 1957 and tends them still.
Its place in the American story
Dreamland Cemetery is, in effect, the Texas Panhandle's story told through the people who made it — a roll call that runs from the open range straight into the modern age. Reading its history, you watch a frontier become a fully formed American community, and you can trace that arc grave by grave.
The presence of Jerry Adams among the first two burials matters far beyond one man. The cowboy of popular imagination is almost always white, yet the real trail crews of the West included many Black and Hispanic riders. A cemetery that opened with an African American cowboy quietly corrects the myth, restoring a fuller picture of who actually did the work of the cattle era.
From there the ground gathers the classic figures of American town-building: the founder, the financier, the judge, the educators who started colleges, the museum founder who preserved the region's memory, and the cultural creators — a dramatist and a musician — who gave it a voice. It is a pattern repeated in cemeteries across the country, but rarely is the full sweep, from open-range cowboy to twentieth-century artist, laid out so plainly in a single place.
If you visit
A historic cemetery asks for a different kind of visit — slower, quieter, more attentive — and Dreamland rewards it. This is high, wide Panhandle country near Canyon, with the great gash of Palo Duro Canyon not far off, and the openness of the land is itself part of the experience.
Walk the older sections and read the dates. The earliest stones reach back to 1891, and the ground grew outward as the community did; you can sense the passage from frontier burials to the graves of educators, civic leaders, and cultural figures who came later. Look for the names the marker gathers — the town's founder, the university presidents, the creator of the "Texas" drama, the musician — and remember that veterans stretching back to the Civil War rest here too.
Dreamland pairs naturally with a trip to Palo Duro Canyon and the historic town of Canyon, turning a scenic Panhandle drive into something deeper. Come with a little time and a little patience, and this becomes less a stop than an introduction — a chance to meet, in one peaceful place, the whole cast of people who turned an ocean of grass into a home.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · L.G. Connor
- · Buddy Knox
- · Margaret Harper
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Randall County
Canyon, TX
Created in 1876 and named for Confederate general Horace Randal, this Panhandle county was first settled in 1877 by rancher Leigh Dyer, brother-in-law of the famed Charles Goodnight, who brought the first cattle to the region. Organized in 1889 with Canyon as its seat, it grew into the home of West Texas State University, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, and Palo Duro Canyon.
Homesite of W. F. Heller, Pioneer Farmer
Canyon, TX
A native Texan and Civil War veteran, W. F. Heller settled on this land in 1887 and became the first to farm the area successfully—no small feat on the challenging Texas plains. When the county organized in 1889 he was elected its first clerk, and he helped found both the area's first Sunday school and West Texas State Normal College. He married Susan Roberts in 1897.
Site of Conner Dugout
Canyon, TX
On land he claimed on Christmas Day of 1887, L. G. Conner dug a half-dugout—a dwelling cut partly into the earth with windows at ground level—that became the first home in what would grow into Canyon, Texas. The little dugout doubled as the town's first post office and hosted the 1889 election that organized Randall County. It was also the birthplace of Mamie Conner, recorded as the first white child born in the county.
Site of Wagon Yard
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From about 1890 to 1921 this Canyon wagon yard was the working headquarters for ranchmen come to town, who slept in their bedrolls or a room above the office and cooked over a campfire in the yard. It cost a dime to stable a horse and fifty cents for a man; feed and coal were for sale, water was free, and hands were hired and horses doctored on the spot.