Plemons Cemetery
Borger, Hutchinson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The town of Plemons was settled about 1898 when James A. Whittenburg, an area rancher, built a dugout house in a hill overlooking a bend in the Canadian River about seven miles northeast of this site. The town was named for Barney Plemons, son of Amarillo judge and State Legislator William Buford Plemons, and when Hutchinson County was organized in Spring 1901, Plemons was chosen county seat. E. E. Akers contracted to build a brick courthouse in that year. According to local oral history accounts, Mrs. E. E. Akers was the first to be interred in the Plemons Cemetery, probably in 1902. Plemons experienced slow growth as a river crossing town. By 1905 a wagon yard, barbershop, doctor's office, drugstore and mercantile store formed a business base for about fifteen families. Former buffalo hunter, scout and Hutchinson County's first Sheriff William (Billy) Dixon and his family operated a hotel for three years. The Amarillo branch of the Rock Island Line was completed through the area in 1926, stopping in Stinnett instead of Plemons. Voters chose Stinnett as the new county seat and Plemons gradually declined. The new county oil boom kept the town going for another two decades. The last burial in the Plemons Cemetery, which includes 66 graves, was that of Charles Ray Sessions, interred in 1953. In 1987 cemetery preservation efforts by local Boy Scouts uncovered a sandstone grave marker reading "Mrs. E. E. A.," lending significant credence to the oral history accounts that Mrs. Akers was the first to be interred on this site. The Plemons Cemetery serves as a chronicle of early Hutchinson County history. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Plemons rose about 1898 when rancher James Whittenburg dug in above a bend of the Canadian River, and it briefly thrived—chosen county seat in 1901, with a brick courthouse, a scatter of shops, and even a hotel run for a time by former buffalo hunter and county sheriff Billy Dixon. Its cemetery began around 1902 with the burial of Mrs. E.E. Akers. But when the railroad bypassed the town for Stinnett in 1926, voters moved the county seat and Plemons faded; an oil boom stretched its life another two decades before the last burial in 1953.
Why it matters
Plemons is a classic Panhandle ghost town whose cemetery outlived the settlement itself, chronicling how railroads and county-seat rivalries could make or unmake a frontier community.
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Related people
- · James A. Whittenburg
- · William "Billy" Dixon
- · Barney Plemons
Themes & tags
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