Foster Cemetery

🏛️The era

In the early 1880s, the North Concho River country of West Texas was ranch land on the edge of settlement. The buffalo had been hunted almost to extinction by the end of the 1870s, the Comanche and Kiowa had been forced onto reservations, and cattlemen were moving onto the open grassland. Families who came here lived far from towns, doctors and churches.

Sterling County did not yet exist as a functioning government when the first burial took place here in 1883. The county was organized in 1891, with Sterling City as its seat. Organizing a county meant electing commissioners, building a courthouse and creating the small machinery of local government, and the people buried here were among those who did that work.

In ranch country like this, family burial plots were common. Death came often, especially for young children, and without a churchyard or town cemetery nearby, families buried their loved ones on their own land. Many of those family plots grew into community cemeteries.

👥People & events

The cemetery's story begins with grief. Robert West Foster and Fannie B. Foster were early settlers and civic leaders in the area, and in 1883 they buried their infant daughter, Fay, on their ranch. She was the first person laid to rest here. Many pioneer cemeteries start this way, with one small grave and a family deciding where it belonged.

Over time, the Foster family's plot became the burial ground for the whole community. R. W. Foster and his brother, William Lenard Foster, served on Sterling County's first Commissioners Court, which helped set up local government. Rufus West Foster and John Walraven later served as mayors of Sterling City. Early ranchers including Newel C. Hodges, W. E. Brownfield, James W. Reynolds and A. Carper are buried here as well.

Some of the names reflect frontier life well. Frank C. Sparkman was both a saloon keeper and a cattle inspector, a combination that says a lot about a rough-edged cow country where people wore more than one hat.

Ethel Foster stands out among them. She served as president of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs, a statewide organization, and her leadership reached far beyond Sterling County. Today the cemetery covers about three and a half acres and is cared for by the Foster Cemetery Association.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Foster Cemetery is a good example of how the American frontier became settled. The people buried here were part of a generation that turned open range into counties, towns and governments within a few decades. Throughout the West, the first commissioners, mayors and ranchers often lie in exactly this sort of place, a family plot that grew into a public burying ground.

Ethel Foster's leadership also connects this small cemetery to a much bigger national movement. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, women's clubs became powerful forces across the country. Women who could not yet vote in most places used these clubs to found libraries, push for public health and education reforms, and take part in civic life. A West Texas ranch woman leading a statewide federation reflects how far that movement reached.

Cemeteries like this are archives in their own right. Their stones record family ties, causes of death, migration and the shape of a community, and they often survive longer than any written records.

🧭If you visit

Foster Cemetery is near Sterling City, in quiet, open ranch country along the North Concho River. Expect wide skies, a peaceful setting and a sense of how remote this land felt to its first settlers.

Walk the grounds slowly. Look for the Foster family names, and for the stones of the early ranchers and civic leaders the marker mentions. Pay attention to the oldest graves, and remember that the first burial here was a baby girl named Fay. Please be respectful: this is a cemetery still in use and cared for by a local association.

Sterling City makes a pleasant stop on a West Texas drive between San Angelo and the Big Spring area. Combine the cemetery with a look at the town and the county courthouse to see the community these pioneers helped build.