Hollywood Cemetery
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ONE OF HOUSTON’S OLDEST AND LARGEST CEMETERIES, WITH OVER 30,000 GRAVES, HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY HAS SERVED AS THE FINAL RESTING PLACE FOR HOUSTON RESIDENTS FOR OVER A CENTURY. WILLIAM JAMES MOORE AND HIS BROTHER, SAMUEL B. MOORE, PURCHASED THE FIRST 55 ACRES IN THREE TRANSACTIONS IN THE SPRING OF 1895. THE ORIGINAL CHARTER OF THE HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY ASSOCIATION OF HARRIS COUNTY WAS FILED ON DECEMBER 23, 1902. THE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE VIA A BRIDGE CROSSING LITTLE WHITE OAK BAYOU BROUGHT CITIZENS INTO THE PROPERTY FROM FULTON AVENUE. WHEN THE TEXAS HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT CONSTRUCTED I-45, THE ENTRANCE WAS MOVED TO THE WEST SIDE OF THE PROPERTY. THE FIRST KNOWN BURIAL IS THAT OF TEN MONTH OLD BUCK HENRY WARNER WHO DIED OF CONGESTION IN JULY 1895. MANY BURIALS IN THIS CEMETERY MARK PROMINENT HOUSTON CITIZENS INCLUDING ACTORS, ARTISTS, MAYORS, JUDGES, THE FIRST HOUSTON LIBRARIAN, AND VETERANS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE PRESENT. NATURALIST HENRY PHILEMON ATTWATER, NURSERYMAN SHINPEI MYKAWA, MAYORS RICHARD H. FONVILLE AND ANDREW LEE JACKSON, AND TEXAS HOUSE SPEAKER FRANKLIN O. FULLER ARE BURIED HERE. DURING THE CEMETERY’S FIRST ONE HUNDRED YEARS, IT WAS MAINTAINED AND OPERATED BY THREE MAJOR OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT GROUPS, PLUS SOME SHORT PERIODS OF INTERIM MANAGEMENT. FRANK P. MOORE (NO RELATION TO THE MOORE BROTHERS) MANAGED THE CEMETERY FOR ITS FIRST 25 YEARS, UNTIL MOORE’S DEATH IN 1919. OWEN H. GATTON MANAGED THE SITE FROM 1919 TO 1926. THE HALL FAMILY, THOMAS C. HALL AND HIS HEIRS, OPERATED THE CEMETERY FOR ALMOST 70 YEARS, FROM 1926 THROUGH 1994. HISTORIC HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY, INC. CONTINUES TO CARE FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL HISTORIC CEMETERY.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of Houston's oldest and largest cemeteries, Hollywood was founded when the Moore brothers bought its first 55 acres in 1895 and formally chartered the cemetery association in 1902. Its more than 30,000 graves hold prominent Houstonians — a pioneering naturalist, a Japanese nurseryman, mayors, judges, and veterans from the Civil War to the present — and it has passed through several long stewardships, most recently a nonprofit preservation group.
Why it matters
As a resting place spanning a century of the city's leaders and everyday citizens, it is a physical archive of Houston's growth and the many wars its people served in.
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Related people
- · William James Moore
- · Henry Philemon Attwater
- · Shinpei Mykawa
- · Franklin O. Fuller
Themes & tags
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