Emporia Cemetery
Diboll, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This pioneer burial ground predates later timber towns of the area. The land was originally set aside as a family cemetery, with the first burial for W.E. and Emily Waltman's infant son William in 1882. The Emporia sawmill operated a few hundred yards west from 1893-1906; some sawmill workers and their families are also buried here, mostly in unmarked graves. Relatives of Jeremiah and Hester Anthony are also buried here, and while that family took care of the graveyard it was also known as Anthony Cemetery or Pleasant Hill Cemetery. Noteworthy features here include the use of landscape petrified wood and homemade concrete gravestones. Once a rural cemetery, the site is now within the city limits of Diboll. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground in the Angelina County pinewoods predates the timber boomtowns that grew up around it, beginning with the 1882 grave of an infant son of W.E. and Emily Waltman. When the Emporia sawmill ran nearby from 1893 to 1906, some of its workers and their families were laid to rest here, many in unmarked graves. Cared for at times by the Anthony family, the site is notable for its folk gravemarkers of petrified wood and homemade concrete, and now sits within the city limits of Diboll.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a quiet record of East Texas's sawmill era, when itinerant timber laborers and pioneer families shared the same rural ground.
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Related people
- · W.E. Waltman
- · Emily Waltman
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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