Illinois Bend Memorial Cemetery
Saint Jo, Montague County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A community sprang up here about the beginning of the Civil War. It was one of two settlements, along with Burlington (Spanish Fort) sited along the Red River in Montague County. After the Civil War, nearby Red River Station became the favored crossing for Longhorn Cattle going up the Chisholm Trail. The community here was known as Maxwell, Maxville or Wardville in its early days. The name Illinois Bend is thought to derive from the former home state of some of the first settlers. The name was fixed by 1877, when the Illinois Bend post office opened. The community had a school, several stores, a cotton gin, churches, and lodges in the 1930s. Multiple ferries operated across the Red River, and a bridge was in use until 1935. The origin of the community burial ground is unknown. The earliest marked grave is for Nancy Smith (1873), and unmarked graves from that period are likely. In 1880, John and Sarah Elliot officially deeded the cemetery with 1.953 acres of land designated for use as a burial ground and school. Records show that the first school, a log cabin called valley branch school, opened in 1877 adjacent to the cemetery. Historic gravestone materials include marble, limestone, granite, sandstone, fieldstone, concrete, and ceramic photographs. An open-air tabernacle predates 1917. The traditional “graveyard working” day was the first Saturday in August (later moved to April), also functioning as a homecoming for those who had moved away. Later, caretakers for the cemetery were hired, maintaining graves and addressing erosion along valley branch with sandbagging and construction of a levee. The Illinois Bend Memorial Cemetery Association cares for this significant chronicle of the community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A community rose here on the Red River around the start of the Civil War, and after the war nearby Red River Station became a favored crossing where Longhorn herds forded on the Chisholm Trail. Known first as Maxwell or Wardville, it took the name Illinois Bend—for some settlers' home state—by 1877, growing to include schools, stores, a cotton gin, churches, and river ferries. Its burial ground, with the earliest marked grave from 1873, remains cared for by a local cemetery association.
Why it matters
Sitting astride a Chisholm Trail river crossing, Illinois Bend embodies the cattle-drive era that shaped the post-Civil War Texas frontier and the westward push of American settlement.
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Related people
- · John Elliot
- · Sarah Elliot
- · Nancy Smith
Related events
- · Chisholm Trail cattle drives
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Saint Jo
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Saint Jo began in the 1850s as "Head of Elm," a settlement at the headwaters of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River founded by hopefuls chasing rumors of gold. Its fortunes turned when the Chisholm Trail routed cattle drives through town around 1868, bringing stores, saloons, and a growing population. Renamed for pioneer Joe Howell — with "Saint" added, one story says, because he was a teetotaler — the town incorporated in 1886 and has held near 1,000 residents on farming and ranching ever since.
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Built of native stone in 1873, the Stonewall Saloon was Saint Jo's first permanent building and a welcome rest stop for cowboys driving cattle up the trail through North Texas. After county prohibition arrived in 1897 it traded whiskey for ledgers, housing offices and a bank, and it was named for Confederate general "Stonewall" Jackson. Stuccoed in the 1930s and given a wooden facade in 1964, it still anchors the town square.
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