Grange Hall Cemetery
Rio Vista, Johnson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Nolands River was an early Johnson County community, established in the late 1850s. A local club of the Grange, a farmers' fraternal organization, organized her in 1874, and built a two-story meeting hall called "Grange Hall" that also housed a local school, church and Masonic lodge. In 1878, W.P. and S.M. Kizziar donated land to the Masonic lodge for use as a cemetery. Of the hundreds of marked graves in Grange Hall Cemetery, more than half date from before 1900. Several early unknown burials are marked by rocks or Bois D' Arc posts. The Menefee family reunion has been held here or nearby annually since 1891. Grange Hall declined after the nearby railroad town of Rio Vista was established in the 1880s. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the farming settlement of Nolands River, a chapter of the Grange — the national farmers' fraternal order — organized in 1874 and raised a two-story hall that doubled as school, church, and Masonic lodge. In 1878 the Kizziars gave land for a cemetery, where more than half the marked graves predate 1900 and a few early burials are marked only by rocks or bois d'arc posts. The community faded after the railroad town of Rio Vista rose nearby in the 1880s.
Why it matters
The hall and its graves capture how the Grange movement knit isolated Texas farm families into civic life, and how a railroad could quietly redraw the map of a county.
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Themes & tags
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