La Feria Cemetery
La Feria, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This community graveyard dates to 1917, when Bernt Anderson deeded land for that purpose. The first recorded burials in the cemetery were of two children: Valda Wessels (1918-1920) and Harry P. McNeil, Jr. (1919-1921). A plot in the northwest corner of the cemetery is known as "Babyland" and contains the unmarked graves of several children. Also interred here are community leaders and veterans of the spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. Some families have buried several generations in the quiet graveyard. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
La Feria's community cemetery dates to 1917, when Bernt Anderson deeded the land, and its first recorded burials were two small children. A corner plot known as "Babyland" holds the unmarked graves of several children, a quiet testament to the era's high infant mortality. Alongside community leaders lie veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II, with some families burying several generations here.
Why it matters
A community graveyard like this gathers a town's whole story into one quiet place, from the children it lost to the veterans of the wars that shaped the American century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Bernt Anderson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
1st North Dakota Infantry
Mercedes, TX
This monument, dedicated in 1960, honors the more than a thousand men of the 1st North Dakota Infantry who camped in the lower Rio Grande Valley during the tense Mexican Border service of 1916-1917. First organized in Dakota Territory in 1883, the regiment served from the Spanish-American War through the Philippines, France in World War I, and the Pacific in World War II—where, as the 164th Infantry, it became the first U.S. Army unit to go on the offensive, at Guadalcanal in 1942.
Battle of La Bolsa
Progreso, TX
In 1859 and 1860 Juan N. Cortina led a series of raids on Texas settlements along the lower Rio Grande, sparking the clashes known as the Cortina Wars. On February 4, 1860, Cortina's raiders met Capt. John S. "Rip" Ford's Texas Rangers at La Bolsa Bend, where the Rangers beat back an attack on the riverboat Ranchero as it steamed down from Rio Grande City. Cortina slipped across into Mexico, where he later rose to become a general in the Mexican Army.
Military Highway of the Lower Rio Grande Valley
Mercedes, TX
This route began as trails worn by Plains Indians along the Rio Grande and followed by Spanish explorers in the 18th century, later linked into a road connecting riverside ranches. As the Military Road it ran from Brownsville to Laredo, tying together frontier forts, stagecoach and mail lines; it carried Confederate cotton inland during the Civil War, served cattle drives, and became the military telegraph road between Forts Brown and McIntosh in the 1870s. Paved by the 1940s, it remained a spine of Valley life across centuries.
Camp Llano Grande
Weslaco, TX
In 1916 and 1917, National Guard units from Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, and North Dakota occupied Camp Llano Grande, one of a chain of encampments strung along the Rio Grande to guard against cross-border raids. The 200-acre camp held a headquarters, commissary, parade grounds, and sprawling tent lines south of the railroad. It was abandoned in March 1917, just a month before the U.S. entered World War I, and its soldiers were soon bound for France.