Old Red Rock Cemetery
Red Rock, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The town of Red Rock grew at the crossing of the Austin - Port Lavaca Stagecoach Road (now FM 812) and the Bastrop - Gonzales Trail (now CR 229). In 1892 the town moved one mile east to the newly-laid railroad. This site, with more than 370 graves, is the burial place of pioneer settlers, including Texas trail drivers and veterans of the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The first documented burial was in 1864. Earlier graves may have been lost when homemade sandstone markers were removed. The cemetery is maintained by descendants of area pioneers.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Red Rock grew up where the Austin–Port Lavaca stagecoach road crossed the Bastrop–Gonzales trail, a typical crossroads settlement of frontier Texas that shifted a mile east in 1892 to meet the new railroad. Its old cemetery holds more than 370 graves, including trail drivers and veterans of the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The first documented burial dates to 1864, though earlier homemade sandstone markers may have been lost.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the memory of the pioneer families whose crossroads settlements and later railroad towns knit together the early Texas countryside.
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Related events
- · Texas Revolution
- · Mexican-American War
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
New Red Rock Cemetery
Red Rock, TX
Settlers reached the Red Rock area by the 1850s, and by the mid-1870s the community supported a post office and the Red Rock Male and Female Academy. When the MK&T Railroad laid track about a mile east in 1890, residents picked up their homes and businesses and moved to the rails—and in 1913 established this cemetery on land given by L. A. and Adrienne Turner. Families have donated ground repeatedly since, and the cemetery association still tends it today.
Site of Hopkinsville
Gonzales, TX
Hopkinsville sprang up after farmer D.S. Hopkins settled here in 1852, growing into a thriving pioneer community in the surrounding farm-and-ranch country. Cattle herds gathered here before striking out for the Chisholm Trail. When a new railroad bypassed the town in 1873, its residents pulled up stakes and moved south to found Waelder, leaving Hopkinsville a memory on the land.
Smithville
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The Smithville area was noted as early as 1691, when a Spanish expedition sighted an Indian-named lagoon still known today as Shipp's Lake. A ferry crossed the Colorado here in 1836 and steamboats plied the river until the 1860s, but the town's fate was sealed by the railroad: when the Taylor, Bastrop & Houston line arrived in 1887, "Old Smithville" picked up and moved to the tracks. Legend says a coin toss kept the name Smithville over "Burlesonville" before the town incorporated in 1895.
McDade
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