Old Fairview Cemetery
Memphis, Hall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Memphis’ oldest burial ground is the final resting place for many pioneer families and prominent community members. J.C. Montgomery, “Father of Memphis,” is buried in the oldest section. The cemetery started a few months before Memphis was selected as hall county seat, and was carved from the northeast corner of the town plat. The earliest marked grave is that of Ben F. Taylor, who died in March 1890. Among several notable graves is that of W. A. Johnson, who was editor of the Hall County Herald, state senator and Lt. Governor of Texas. The Fairview Cemetery Association, formed in 1993, cares for Old Fairview Cemetery as well as adjoining burial grounds. Designated Historic Texas Cemetery in 2012.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Memphis's oldest burial ground was carved from the corner of the town plat just months before the community was chosen as the seat of Hall County, out on the Texas Panhandle plains. J.C. Montgomery, remembered as the "Father of Memphis," rests in its oldest section, and the earliest marked grave belongs to Ben F. Taylor, who died in 1890. Among the notable dead is W.A. Johnson—newspaper editor, state senator, and lieutenant governor of Texas—whose grave reflects the town's early prominence.
Why it matters
The cemetery holds the founders and leaders who built a Panhandle county seat from open range, preserving the memory of the pioneer generation that settled far West Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Old Fairview Cemetery is described as Memphis's oldest burial ground, and its beginnings are woven directly into the founding of the town and of Hall County itself. This is Panhandle country, settled late and fast, where the transition from open range to organized county happened within a single generation in the closing years of the nineteenth century.
The cemetery was carved from the northeast corner of the town plat and began just a few months before Memphis was chosen as the county seat. That timing is remarkable: the community was quite literally laying out its townsite and its resting place at the same moment. A county seat brought a courthouse, records, commerce, and permanence — and the people who won and built that town are the people buried here.
This was a world being made from scratch on the high plains. Streets, businesses, newspapers, and civic offices all appeared in a rush, and the founding generation who did that work left their mark not only on the living town but on the ground set aside for the dead.
People & events
At the heart of the oldest section lies J.C. Montgomery, remembered as the "Father of Memphis." A title like that is earned by the people who do the founding work — securing a townsite, drawing settlers, building the institutions that make a place last. That he rests in the earliest part of the cemetery ties the town's origin story to its oldest ground.
The earliest marked grave belongs to Ben F. Taylor, who died in March 1890 — a date that anchors just how young this community was when it first had to bury its own. Around that grave gathered the pioneer families and prominent citizens who filled out the life of a new county seat.
Among the notable dead is W.A. Johnson, whose career shows how far a frontier town's people could reach. He edited the Hall County Herald, served as a state senator, and rose to Lieutenant Governor of Texas. That a small, newly settled Panhandle community could send one of its own to statewide office says a great deal about the ambition and civic energy of these early residents. In 1993 the Fairview Cemetery Association formed to care for Old Fairview and the burial grounds beside it, and in 2012 the site was designated a Historic Texas Cemetery.
Its place in the American story
The founding of a county seat on the open plains was a defining act of the American West's final settlement phase. It marked the moment a stretch of ranchland became a governed community, with all the institutions that implies. A cemetery begun in that same instant is a foundational record of the whole undertaking.
What gives this place broader resonance is the range of lives it holds. A "Father of Memphis," a newspaper editor who became a statewide officeholder, ordinary pioneer families, and a child or citizen whose 1890 grave came first — all of them lie in the same ground. That mix captures how new communities produced their own leaders, their own press, and their own political voice, sometimes within just a few years of settlement.
The careers that ran from a small Panhandle town all the way to the state capitol illustrate a genuinely American story: that a place could be brand new and still shape the affairs of an entire state. The 2012 Historic Texas Cemetery designation recognizes this ground as a lasting record of that founding generation.
If you visit
Old Fairview sits on the Panhandle plains, where the horizon runs wide and the sky feels close. Come ready for open country and a certain stillness; these are places for walking slowly and reading carefully.
Seek out the oldest section, where the town's founders lie. This is where you'll find the earliest graves, including markers from around 1890, and where the connection between the cemetery and the birth of the town is strongest. The plainest, most weathered stones often mark the most important early residents.
As you walk, keep in mind the reach of some of the lives represented here — from the founding of the town to service in state government. Standing among these graves, you can feel how a community built from open range produced leaders whose work extended far beyond it. If you're touring this corner of the Panhandle, a visit here is a direct encounter with the people who made a county seat out of the plains.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · J.C. Montgomery
- · Ben F. Taylor
- · W.A. Johnson
Themes & tags
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