Hockley County Cemetery
Levelland, Hockley County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Texas Legislature created Hockley County in 1876 but the county did not formally organize until 1921; the small settlement of Hockley City (now Levelland) was named the county seat in that year. The arrival of the Santa Fe railroad in 1925 caused tremendous population growth in the county, from 137 in 1920 to 9,298 in 1930. The railroad also encouraged the expansion of agricultural activities in the county, which required additional laborers to work the land. The growing economy brought the migration of many people, including minorities, to the area in a time when segregation was widely practiced. Hockley County commissioners court set aside two acres of land in fall 1927 for the establishment of a segregated cemetery for the burial of indigent and minority residents; it was known as the Hockley County Cemetery or north side cemetery. County death records indicate that the first burial at the site was that of Jerry McHenry, an African American who was interred in April 1930. In 1975, the burial of Nora Robertson was the last one recorded at the site. The cemetery contains fourteen marked graves and over 100 unmarked burials. Veterans of both World Wars are buried here. Although the cemetery remains open for interment, it has seen little use since the 1960s, when the city of Levelland Cemetery was desegregated. Today, Hockley County Cemetery serves as a reminder of an important group of people who worked hard to build Hockley County. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2007
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Santa Fe railroad reached Hockley County in 1925, the population exploded and drew many minority laborers to work the land in an era of strict segregation. In 1927 the county set aside two acres for a segregated cemetery for indigent and minority residents; the first recorded burial, in 1930, was of Jerry McHenry, an African American man. Little used after Levelland's cemetery was desegregated in the 1960s, it holds fourteen marked graves and over 100 unmarked burials.
Why it matters
It is a stark physical record of Jim Crow segregation reaching even into death, and of the Black and minority workers whose labor built Hockley County.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Hockley County sat nearly empty for decades. The Texas Legislature created it on paper back in 1876, but it did not formally organize until 1921, when the small settlement of Hockley City — today's Levelland — became the county seat. This is the flat, open country of the South Plains, land that waited a long time for the people and the transportation that would finally fill it.
What changed everything was the railroad. When the Santa Fe line reached the county in 1925, growth came like a flood: the population leapt from just 137 in 1920 to 9,298 by 1930. The rails also opened the land to large-scale farming of cotton and other crops, and that agriculture demanded labor — workers to break, plant, and harvest the newly productive ground.
That need drew many people to the county, minorities among them, at a time when segregation was widely and rigidly practiced across Texas. The new prosperity of the 1920s, in other words, arrived hand in hand with the era's racial dividing lines — and those lines, as this site shows, were drawn even over the dead.
People & events
As the county boomed, its commissioners court made a decision that fixed segregation into the very ground. In the fall of 1927 they set aside two acres for a separate cemetery for the burial of indigent and minority residents, a place known as the Hockley County Cemetery or, plainly, the north side cemetery. It was, from the start, a burial place defined by exclusion.
The county death records name the first person laid to rest here: Jerry McHenry, an African American man interred in April 1930. Over the following decades the ground received the community's poor and its people of color, including veterans of both World Wars — men who had served the nation abroad and were buried, at home, in a segregated plot. The last recorded burial, in 1975, was that of Nora Robertson.
The cemetery's silences say as much as its records. It holds fourteen marked graves and more than a hundred unmarked burials — a ratio that speaks to how many were laid down without the means for a lasting stone. Use fell away sharply after the 1960s, when the city of Levelland Cemetery was desegregated and the reason for a separate ground finally dissolved. Though it remains open for interment, it has seen little use since. In 2007 it was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery.
Its place in the American story
This small plot is a stark physical record of Jim Crow, the system of legal and social segregation that shaped American life for the better part of a century. Segregation is often remembered through schools, lunch counters, and railcars; here it appears in its most sobering form — a separate cemetery, proof that the color line was enforced from birth all the way to burial.
The site also honors a chapter of the nation's story that is easy to overlook: the labor that built new country. The Black and minority workers who came to farm the South Plains in the 1920s did the hard work of turning open land into a productive county, yet lived, and were buried, on the wrong side of the era's rules. Their graves are a monument to that overlooked contribution.
The presence of veterans of both World Wars sharpens the point. Men who wore the nation's uniform were, in death, still subject to segregation at home — a contradiction that lay at the heart of the civil rights struggle. And the cemetery's decline after Levelland desegregated in the 1960s marks, in one quiet place, the larger national turn away from official segregation.
If you visit
Come to this place prepared for its quiet and its emptiness, because both are part of what it has to teach. With only fourteen marked graves standing over more than a hundred unmarked burials, much of what you are looking at is ground whose occupants left no lasting stone. Let that imbalance register; it is the truest thing the site has to say.
Carry two names with you as you walk: Jerry McHenry, the African American man whose 1930 burial opened this ground, and Nora Robertson, whose 1975 interment closed it. Between them lie the working people — including veterans of two World Wars — whose labor helped build a county that would not bury them beside everyone else.
Recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2007, this is a somber stop rather than a scenic one, and it rewards reflection more than photographs. Fit it into a broader look at the history of the South Plains and you will understand something the boomtown numbers alone can't tell you — that the same railroad and cotton prosperity that filled this county also drew the line that this ground was made to enforce.
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
- · Jerry McHenry
- · Nora Robertson
Themes & tags
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