Feely Cemetery
Van Horn, Culberson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The nearby cemetery (250 yards S) was first used in 1910 for the burial of an infant son of J.H. Feely. The owner of a grocery in the railroad settlement of Plateau (2 miles north), he later served as the first sheriff of Culberson County when it was organized in 1911. Three years later he was killed in the line of duty and was buried in Van Horn (18 miles west). The burial ground here contains mostly unmarked graves of family members and pioneer area settlers. Only a metal fence has protected the site, which was unused and neglected for many years.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This West Texas cemetery was first used in 1910 for the infant son of J. H. Feely, a grocer in the railroad settlement of Plateau who went on to become Culberson County's first sheriff when it organized in 1911. Three years later he was killed in the line of duty. The burial ground holds mostly unmarked graves of family members and pioneer settlers, long neglected and protected only by a metal fence.
Why it matters
It memorializes the ordinary settlers and the first lawman of a raw frontier county carved out of the West Texas desert.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1900s, far West Texas was still some of the emptiest country in the continental United States. The railroad was the thread that held it together. Small settlements grew up along the tracks as water stops and supply points, and Plateau was one of them. A family could buy groceries there, send mail, and meet the train, surrounded by desert, mountains, and open range.
Counties out here were enormous and thinly settled, and new ones were still being carved out well into the twentieth century. Culberson County was organized in 1911. That was late for an American county, and a sign of how recently this corner of Texas had moved from open frontier to organized government.
Those first years were a time of building from scratch: courts, records, roads, and law enforcement. The people doing it were often the same shopkeepers and ranchers who had already made a living here. Life was hard, distances were vast, and medical care was scarce. Graveyards like this one filled with the very young and the very determined.
People & events
The cemetery began with a family's loss. In 1910 J. H. Feely, who ran a grocery in the railroad settlement of Plateau two miles north, buried an infant son here. It was the first known burial on this ground. It is a small, private sorrow, but it is also the kind that shaped frontier communities, where losing a child was painfully common.
Feely's story did not stop at the store counter. When Culberson County was organized in 1911, he became its first sheriff, carrying the law across a huge and sparsely settled territory. Three years later he was killed in the line of duty. The marker does not say how, and it is best not to guess. He was buried not here but in Van Horn, eighteen miles west.
Others followed his son into this ground: members of the Feely family and pioneer settlers of the area. Most of their graves are unmarked. For many years the site went unused and neglected, with only a metal fence standing guard. The names of many who rest here are no longer known.
Its place in the American story
The American frontier is often told through famous gunfights and legendary lawmen. Places like this tell the more common version. The West was settled by grocers, railroad families, and first-generation county officials who built institutions from nothing, often at great personal cost.
Feely's death makes him one of the many early lawmen who died serving new communities across the West. His county was being formed in the same years the country as a whole was growing into the twentieth century. That is a reminder that in parts of Texas the 'frontier' lasted long after the Census Bureau declared it closed.
The unmarked graves matter too. Across the country, pioneer burial grounds like this one hold the people who actually did the settling. Once a fence and a marker are all that is left to protect them, their survival depends on someone choosing to remember.
If you visit
The cemetery sits about 250 yards south of the marker, out in the open desert country of Culberson County. Expect a quiet, weathered place with a simple metal fence and mostly unmarked graves, not a manicured memorial ground. Treat it with the respect any burial site deserves. Stay on paths and leave everything as you found it.
The setting is part of the experience. The wide sky, the distant ranges, and the long straight lines of highway and railroad give you a real sense of how isolated a railroad settlement like Plateau must have been. Imagine a young family burying a child here in 1910, with the nearest town miles away.
This stop fits naturally into a West Texas road trip. Van Horn, eighteen miles west, is where Sheriff Feely himself is buried and makes a good base. Bring water, fill your tank before long stretches, and give yourself time to take in country that still feels like the frontier.
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
- · J. H. Feely
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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