Saint Mary's Cemetery
West, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early Catholic settlers in northern McLennan County worshipped at St. Martin's Church in Tours, five miles southeast of present West. After more immigrant Catholic families of Czech, Moravian, Slovak, and German origin moved to the area in the late 19th century, a new parish was established in west. St. Mary's Church of the Assumption was built in 1892, and in 1893 Joseph and Maria Hromadka sold land at this site to the Catholic Diocese for development as a cemetery are those of Vaclav Masek (1838-1892) and Mary Cocek (1875-1893) Among the more than 2,700 persons buried here are pioneer settlers, immigrants, military veterans, members of several generations of some families, and priests who have served St. Mary's parish. The Rev. Monsignor Joseph Pelnar (1865-1940), who led the Parish for forty years, is buried beneath the large stone cross in the western section of the graveyard. Many of the graves are marked with distinctive marble tombstones or metal ornamentation; a large number of inscriptions and epitaphs are in the Czech language. The cemetery serves as a visible image of the area's rich cultural history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As Czech, Moravian, Slovak, and German Catholic families settled northern McLennan County in the late 1800s, they founded a new parish and, in 1892, built St. Mary's Church of the Assumption. The next year the Hromadka family sold this land to the diocese for a cemetery, where more than 2,700 people now rest—pioneers, immigrants, priests, and veterans. Many headstones bear distinctive marble carving and metal ornament, and a large number of the epitaphs are written in Czech.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a vivid record of Central Texas's Central European immigrant heritage, where the Czech language and Catholic faith carried by settlers are still legible in stone.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. Monsignor Joseph Pelnar
- · Joseph Hromadka
- · Maria Hromadka
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Former Site of Saint Peter's Church
McLennan County, TX
In the 1880s, eight German immigrant families settled near West, Texas, on land owned by Jacob Closner, who deeded ten acres for a church and burying ground. Organized as St. Peter's Evangelical in 1887 under the Rev. Christian Schaer, the congregation worshiped here for generations before merging into the First United Church in 1966. The building was later sold, but the pioneer cemetery remains.
Groppe Barn
West, TX
The town of West grew from a wave of German and Czech immigrants who turned the McLennan County blackland into productive farms. Among them was August Groppe, Sr., who bought this land in 1874, helped found West's German community, and in 1886 hired local builder Joseph Huber to raise this barn. With its brace-frame timber construction, cross-gabled hay door, and angled cross-shaped opening, it is a fine surviving example of a late-19th-century immigrant farmstead.
Church of the Assumption
West, TX
When the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad pushed through central Texas around 1890, the Czech Catholic families of West gained enough numbers to petition their bishop for a church of their own, splitting from the older congregation at Martinville. Their 1892 sanctuary held Masses in Latin but also in Czech — a reminder that faith and mother tongue traveled together across the Atlantic. Fire destroyed the wooden church in 1903, but the congregation rebuilt in brick that same year, and again in 1956.
Groppe Building
West, TX
August Groppe, Sr., one of the first German settlers in the area, had this structure raised in 1892—the very year the town of West was incorporated. A prosperous cotton farmer and businessman, Groppe hired local brickmasons and used bricks made near West to build the first brick building in the town's business district. Over the following century the building housed a succession of enterprises, from dry goods store to grocery to drugstore.