Palo Pinto Cemetery
Palo Pinto, Palo Pinto County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery traces its history to 1857 when a 320-acre tract of land was surveyed for the original Palo Pinto townsite. The town was platted in 1858 and one block was laid around an existing cemetery. In 1880 Palo Pinto citizens purchased the graveyard from the county. The oldest legible grave marker is that of George W. Slaughter (May 6, 1843-June 15, 1860). Those interred here include area pioneers, military veterans, Texas Rangers, and prominent Palo Pinto citizens. The Palo Pinto Cemetery Association was organized in 1974 to provide maintenance for the cemetery. (1992)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground predates the town around it: a cemetery already existed when Palo Pinto was surveyed in 1857 and platted in 1858, and the new townsite simply laid a block around it. Its oldest legible stone marks a boy who died in 1860, and among those resting here are frontier pioneers, Texas Rangers, and early citizens of this rugged cattle country. Local citizens bought the graveyard from the county in 1880 and formed an association in 1974 to tend it.
Why it matters
A pioneer cemetery is often the fullest surviving record of who settled a frontier county, preserving the names of the Rangers, ranchers, and families who built it.
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Related people
- · George W. Slaughter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Christian Church
Palo Pinto, TX
Palo Pinto's oldest church building serves a congregation believed to be the first of any faith to worship here, organized in 1857 in the home of lay preacher Dr. Stephen S. Taylor. Members raised the sanctuary in 1882–83, and despite storm damage that same year it has stayed in continuous use — sometimes lending its walls to other faiths in their infancy. Among its early pastors were Addison and Randolph Clark, founders of what became Texas Christian University.
Courthouses of Palo Pinto County
Palo Pinto, TX
Created in 1856, Palo Pinto County laid out its seat at the geographic center and built a modest $300 wood-frame courthouse the following year, in a town first called Golconda and soon renamed Palo Pinto. A grand sandstone courthouse with a Second Empire clock tower rose in 1882, quarried from local stone and later joined to an annex by an iron bridge. In 1940–1942 those buildings gave way to a WPA-built reinforced-concrete courthouse clad in some of the old sandstone.
Jonathan Hamilton Baker
Palo Pinto, TX
Virginia-born Jonathan Hamilton "Ham" Baker reached Texas in 1858 and settled in Palo Pinto County, where he opened what is believed to be its first organized school and helped found its first Methodist church. On the exposed frontier he led local defenders against Comanche raids, rode with Lawrence Sullivan Ross in the 1860 recovery of Cynthia Ann Parker, and captained the home guard during the Civil War. He was also a trail-driving cattleman and tireless local officeholder whose decades-long diary preserves a vivid record of frontier Texas.
Old County Jail
Palo Pinto, TX
Raised in 1880 from locally quarried sandstone, this jail replaced a crude log lockup and reflected the ambitions of a young frontier county. Its lower floor first held county offices and later a jailer's family, while the upper story confined killers, cattle rustlers, and rowdy cowboys—a snapshot of a still-lawless West. A hanging trap door installed in 1907 was never used, and after the building was vacated it was rescued as a county museum.