Rossville Cemetery

🏛️The era

This cemetery lies along the Atascosa River in South Texas, south of San Antonio. For centuries this region was part of the Spanish and then Mexican frontier, where Tejano families ranched and farmed long before Texas became a republic or a state. The story here begins with one of the most important Tejanos in Texas history and continues through the decades after the Civil War.

By 1870, when the land at this site changed hands, Texas was in the middle of Reconstruction. South Texas was ranch country, and families of Mexican, Anglo, and European origin lived side by side, married into one another's families, and built small communities on the land.

The Rossville community grew up here after 1873. Its cemetery holds the story of that mixed frontier society, where Tejano families who had been in the area for generations were joined by newcomers from as far away as Scotland.

👥People & events

The story starts with José Antonio Navarro, a towering figure in Texas history. Navarro was a native of San Antonio and one of the Tejano signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He spent his long life working for Texas and for the rights of Tejanos within it. He transferred land here along the Atascosa River to his eldest son, José Antonio George Navarro.

In 1870, that son gave 160 acres to his daughter, Maria Antonia Navarro, when she married John C. Ross, a Scotsman, in San Antonio. One acre was set aside for a cemetery. After 1873, Ross and his brother William founded the community of Rossville. The very first burial was a family loss: Juana Chaves Navarro, Maria Antonia's mother, who died in 1874.

Other pioneer families who lived here even before Rossville was founded are also buried in this ground. Their names, among them Alvarez, Bergara, Castanon, Cruz, Galindo, Gonzales, Riojas, Tabberer, Tober, and Stokes, show the blend of Tejano and Anglo families who shared this land. Confederate veteran Clemente Galindo and his wife, Martha Goins Galindo, rest here with many of their descendants.

There is a touching twist at the end. By the 1920s the road to the cemetery had become so poor that, when John Ross died, he was buried about a mile east at the Episcopal Church Cemetery. His wife, Maria Antonia, rests here, near their home site. Their son, Texas Ranger Captain Tom Ross, is buried here as well, along with other descendants of the Navarro, Chaves, and Ross families.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

This quiet cemetery connects directly to the founding of Texas. José Antonio Navarro is a reminder that Texas independence was not only the work of Anglo-American settlers. Tejanos, Texans of Mexican descent, helped shape the republic from the start, and Navarro was among the most important of them.

The graves here also tell a larger American story about the borderlands. In South Texas, Hispanic families with deep roots married into newcomer families, built shared communities, and passed land down through generations. The names on these stones show a society that was already mixed and multicultural in the 1800s.

The marker was placed in 1986 for the Texas Sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of independence. Choosing to tell this story then was a statement that the descendants of a Tejano founder, and the families around them, belong at the center of the state's history.

🧭If you visit

Rossville is a small rural community in Atascosa County, south of San Antonio, so the trip here takes you into quiet South Texas ranch land. Expect brush country, open land, and a slower pace. The cemetery sits near the old Ross home site, and the setting helps you feel how isolated these families once were.

As you walk, look for the family names listed on the marker. Seeing Navarro, Galindo, Riojas, and Ross on stones side by side shows how intertwined these families became. Please treat it as the sacred place it is: walk gently, don't lean on old stones, and respect any fences or signs.

This stop pairs well with a visit to San Antonio, where Navarro lived and where his story is widely remembered. Making a day of it lets you follow one family from the city where Texas was being born out to the riverside land where his descendants settled. If you're curious about the detail in the inscription, the Episcopal Church Cemetery where John Ross is buried lies about a mile to the east.