Houston Cemetery Company
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Houston Cemetery Company was one of several chartered and private associations promoted by Houston business leaders for the purpose of effecting civic, cultural and economic improvements following the Civil War. Houston Cemetery Company was chartered as a private cemetery company by the state of Texas on May 12, 1871, and the company set out to establish a rural cemetery with beauty and integrity. Several names for the new cemetery were considered, but stockholders and directors finally chose by ballot the name “Glenwood.” The first burial at Glenwood cCmetery occurred on june 19, 1872. Glenwood Cemetery is an early Texas example of the country cemetery plan first used in the eastern and northern United States in the 1830s. Directors selected property situated between Buffalo Bayou and Washington Avenue interspersed with springs and gullies to achieve the desired pastoral setting. The intended park-like landscape design is reflected in the rambling walks and drives that follow the curvilinear sections situated around a wooded glen and a bridge over a spring-fed gully. The beautiful setting drew Houstonians to Glenwood Cemetery as a place of relaxation and recreation prior to the 1899 establishment of Houston’s first public park, Sam Houston park. The Houston Cemetery Company reorganized as the Glenwood Cemetery Association in 1904, and the Association was succeeded by Glenwood Cemetery, Inc., in 1969. The Glenwood Cemetery Historic Preservation foundation was formed in 1999 to preserve the historic heritage of the monuments and grounds of this important Houston landmark.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1871, the Houston Cemetery Company was one of several private ventures through which the city's business leaders pursued civic improvement after the Civil War. Choosing a picturesque site of springs and gullies between Buffalo Bayou and Washington Avenue, they named it Glenwood and made its first burial in 1872. Its winding drives and curvilinear plots followed the eastern rural-cemetery model, and the park-like grounds drew Houstonians for leisure years before the city opened its first public park.
Why it matters
Glenwood brought the American rural-cemetery movement to Texas, doubling as a burial ground and the city's earliest landscaped public space.
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