Harlingen Cemetery
Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Harlingen Cemetery came into legal existence in 1912. In that year, Lon C. Hill (1862-1935), founder of the city of Harlingen and president of the Harlingen land and water company, sold 7.6 acres of land at this site for one dollar to trustees of the Harlingen Cemetery. Burials, however, had taken place here since the death of Robert Keen Weems (1893-1909), a teenager who had come to this area in a freight car from Houston. Although weems was the first to be buried at the graveyard, others who had died earlier, such as George Dorough (1868-1904), were reinterred here. This cemetery originally was divided into sections for babies, blacks, Anglos and Hispanics. These divisions have not been utilized since the cemetery was deeded to the city of Harlingen in 1947, but tombstone designs and grave decorations still reflect diverse cultural influences. Leaders of the community that have been buried here include James Lockhart (d. 1947), the town's first postmaster; Horace Johnson (d. 1928), a Cameron County deputy sheriff; and David L. Hinojosa (d. 1932), a Texas Ranger. The cemetery serves as a reminder of the surrounding community's rich heritage. (1984, 1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Lon C. Hill, the founder of Harlingen, deeded these acres to cemetery trustees for a token dollar in 1912, he was formalizing a burial ground that had already received its first grave three years earlier. Like many South Texas cemeteries of its era, it was originally laid out in separate sections for Anglos, Hispanics, African Americans, and infants — divisions abandoned after the city took it over in 1947. The tombstones and grave decorations still preserve the borderland's braided cultural traditions.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a quiet record of both the founding of a Rio Grande Valley boomtown and the segregation that shaped early-20th-century American communities, even in death.
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Related people
- · Lon C. Hill
- · Robert Keen Weems
- · James Lockhart
- · David L. Hinojosa
Themes & tags
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