McLean Cemetery
Rogers, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
McLean Cemetery. Established 1885. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2017
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1885, McLean Cemetery served the farming families of the blackland prairie around Rogers in Bell County during the boom decades that followed the arrival of the railroads in Central Texas. Community cemeteries of the Gilded Age tracked the steady growth of settlement across the region. It holds a Historic Texas Cemetery designation.
Why it matters
A late-19th-century rural cemetery documents the agricultural settlement of Central Texas as railroads opened the prairie to permanent communities.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Robert Craddock
Rogers vicinity, TX
John Robert Craddock left Kentucky for Mexican Texas in 1833 and, three years later, took up arms in the Texas Revolution, fighting at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto that won the Republic its independence. He put down roots in Bell County, married Amanda Childers in 1840, and raised thirteen children on the land where the family—several of them in unmarked graves—still rests. His burial here in 1891, and his wife's beside him in 1900, closes a life that spanned Texas's passage from Mexican province to independent republic to state.
Val Verde Baptist Church
Davilla, TX
In 1875 eight members of the Davilla Baptist Church broke off to organize a congregation nearer their homes, with J. S. Mullins as first pastor. Charter member James Putnam Whittington, a Civil War veteran who had fought at the Battle of Val Verde in H. H. Sibley's New Mexico campaign, suggested naming the new church Val Verde, and later donated land for its sanctuary and cemetery. A surplus army chapel moved from Brownwood in 1949 became its later home.
Reed's Lake
Rogers vicinity, TX
Founded in 1834 by settlers of the Sterling Robertson colony, Reed's Lake was the earliest settlement in Bell County, established while Texas was still part of Mexico. It took its name from the family of John Burnett Reed, who in 1859 built a large house that still stands, added a cotton gin, and donated land for a school and cemetery. The settlement anchored the surrounding countryside as Anglo colonization pushed into central Texas.
City of Rogers
Rogers, TX
Founded in 1881 and named for Santa Fe Railroad official John D. Rogers, this Bell County town rode the great Central Texas cotton boom. Within a few years it had a post office and stores, and at its peak boasted schools, churches, a newspaper, three banks, and six cotton gins. Among its native sons were four Bell County sheriffs, including the county's first, William Reed.