Garza-Valadez Cemetery
Floresville, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground is one of three that served the Old Lodi Settlement. Most of the individuals interred here were Texans of Mexican descent. The oldest known burial is of Polonio Garcia, who died in 1883, though there may be earlier interments. Others buried here include Civil War veteran Juan de la Garza, and World War I veterans Vicente Garza and Jesus Valdez. The cemetery features crosses, grave slabs, spanish language inscriptions and an enclosure made of red bricks similar to those used in building the Wilson County Courthouse. Today, the cemetery remains active and continues as a reminder of the area’s pioneering Hispanic community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground is one of three that served the old Lodi Settlement, and most of those laid to rest here were Tejanos—Texans of Mexican descent. The earliest known grave, that of Polonio Garcia, dates to 1883, and the cemetery also holds veterans across generations of American wars, from Civil War soldier Juan de la Garza to World War I veterans Vicente Garza and Jesus Valdez. Its crosses, Spanish-language grave slabs, and brick enclosure—laid in bricks like those of the Wilson County Courthouse—still mark an active, living memorial.
Why it matters
The cemetery honors the pioneering Hispanic families who helped settle Wilson County and served in the nation's wars, a reminder that Tejano roots run to the very foundations of Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
South-central Texas, in the country around present-day Wilson County, was settled by families whose roots reached back to the era of Spanish and Mexican Texas long before it reached back to Anglo-American arrivals. Among these were Tejanos — Texans of Mexican descent — who worked the land, raised families, and built communities here across generations. The Old Lodi Settlement was one such community, and this burial ground is one of three that served it.
The span of history held in this small cemetery is remarkably wide. Its earliest known grave dates to 1883, in the Reconstruction and Gilded Age years, when Texas was rebuilding after the Civil War and rural communities like this one were putting down permanent roots. It remained in use through the Progressive and Modern eras that followed — decades that carried the country through industrial growth, immigration, and world war.
A cemetery like this is a quiet archive of ordinary life. The crosses, the grave slabs, and the Spanish-language inscriptions all speak to a community that kept its language and its faith across the generations. Even the brick enclosure tells a story of place: it was laid in bricks like those used to build the Wilson County Courthouse, tying this family ground to the civic architecture of the county around it.
People & events
The oldest burial known here is that of Polonio Garcia, who died in 1883 — though the marker is careful to note there may be earlier graves whose record has been lost to time. That honesty matters in a place like this, where memory and stone do not always keep perfect pace.
What gives this cemetery its particular power is the way it holds veterans across the sweep of American wars. Juan de la Garza was a veteran of the Civil War, that defining national conflict of the mid-nineteenth century. Vicente Garza and Jesus Valdez were veterans of World War I, the great overseas conflict of the early twentieth. To walk from one grave to another here is to cross more than half a century of the nation's history — and to see it carried by members of a single Tejano community.
These were not famous names in the national story, and that is the point. They were the sons and neighbors of a pioneering Hispanic community who answered the country's calls to service across generations, then came home to be buried among their own people, beneath crosses inscribed in the language their families had always spoken.
Its place in the American story
This burial ground quietly corrects a story that too often gets told too narrowly. The Tejano families laid to rest here were not latecomers to Texas; their community's roots run to the very foundations of the state. When we remember that Texas was Hispanic long before it was American, cemeteries like this one become primary evidence — the physical proof that Mexican-descended Texans built and sustained communities here across the centuries.
The presence of veterans from both the Civil War and World War I makes an even larger point about who has served the nation. American military history is often pictured without these faces, yet here they are, generation after generation, buried with the honor due to those who fought. Their service ties this small Texas settlement directly to the country's largest conflicts.
That the cemetery remains active — still receiving the community's dead — means it is not a relic but a living thread of continuity. It connects the Texas of 1883 to the Texas of today through an unbroken line of families who never left.
If you visit
Come to this place expecting intimacy rather than grandeur. It is a family and community burial ground, and its beauty lies in the details: the crosses, the grave slabs, and the Spanish-language inscriptions that record names and dates in the language of the community that has always tended it.
Look for the brick enclosure that rings the ground. The story that it was laid in bricks like those of the Wilson County Courthouse is worth pausing over — it links this quiet corner to the county's public buildings and reminds you that the same hands and the same materials shaped both. Take a moment, too, with the veterans' graves, and let the long span between a Civil War soldier and World War I soldiers settle in.
Because the cemetery is still active, treat it as the sacred, working place it is — respectful and unhurried. It fits well into a slow drive through the small communities of Wilson County, where the deeper you look, the further back the Tejano history reaches. This is a stop for travelers who want to feel a community's roots rather than tick off a landmark.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Juan de la Garza
- · Vicente Garza
- · Jesus Valdez
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Flores de Abrego Family and Floresville
Floresville, TX
The Flores de Abrego family came from northern Spain before the American Revolution and, through the eighteenth century, drove their cattle north to establish ranches along the San Antonio River. Grandsons of the family fought on the Texian side in the revolution against Mexico, and in 1854 Josefa Agustina Flores de Abrego married Samuel William Barker, who became Wilson County's first sheriff. In 1867 Josefa donated 200 acres for the new county seat, asking that it be named Floresville in honor of her ancestor Francisco Antonio Flores de Abrego II.
El Carmen Cemetery (Cementerio del Carmen)
San Antonio, TX
This San Antonio cemetery traces its origin to the Battle of Medina of August 18, 1813, when a Republican Army of the North — Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and Indians seeking to free Mexico from Spanish rule — was crushed by the Royalist army, and hundreds of the dead were interred here. A chapel built over the soldiers' burial crypt grew into the church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, and the site became a community cemetery for the surrounding land-grant families. Among those later buried here are Alamo survivor Enrique Esparza and French immigrant naturalist Gustave Toudouze.
Cemetery of Canary Islanders
Floresville, TX
This cemetery predates the church built in 1732 by Canary Island colonists who, led by Juan Leal Goras, arrived in 1731 to farm and raise stock in Spanish Texas. Their settlement, the villa of San Fernando, became the first organized municipality in Texas, and among the unmarked graves here lies the flamboyant Dona Maria Cavillo. The site is now owned by the county.
White House Café and Saloon
Floresville, TX
Built in downtown Floresville sometime between 1902 and 1907, this Victorian commercial building housed the White House Restaurant by 1909 and gained a second story by 1912. Around 1910 the Teltschik brothers, sons of German immigrants, partnered to run the café and lodging; Fritz eventually ran it alone and bought the property in 1921, welcoming community meetings and high-school students for the next fifty years. Its arched windows and brick corbelling survive as a rare example of the Victorian commercial storefronts that once lined Texas main streets.