San Saba Cemetery
San Saba, San Saba County, Texas
Marker Inscription
SAN SABA CEMETERY, PREVIOUSLY THE ODD FELLOWS CEMETERY, IS LOCATED ON 17 ACRES OF LAND ABOUT 800 YARDS NORTH OF OLD TOWN SAN SABA. ON APRIL 18, 1883 THE SAN SABA CHAPTER OF THE INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS (IOOF) PURCHASED 10 ACRES OF THIS LAND FROM J.J. STOCKBRIDGE TO ESTABLISH A CEMETERY, WHICH THEY MAINTAINED FOR 45 YEARS. ON APRIL 3, 1929, THE NEWLY INCORPORATED SAN SABA CEMETERY ASSOCIATION PURCHASED THE CEMETERY FOR $1.00 AND AN ADDITIONAL 7 ACRES FROM MRS. MAY HOLMAN, ALSO FOR $1.00. IN 1935 BURIALS FROM SAN SABA’S EARLIEST CITY CEMETERY, NOW ROGAN FIELD, WERE REINTERRED HERE. THE CEMETERY REFLECTS SAN SABA’S EARLIEST TIMES AND IS A CONTINUING RECORD OF THE LIVES AND CULTURE OF ITS CHANGING PEOPLE.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Originally the Odd Fellows Cemetery, this burial ground began in 1883 when the local IOOF lodge bought ten acres north of old San Saba and maintained it for forty-five years. In 1929 the newly incorporated San Saba Cemetery Association purchased the grounds and additional acreage for token sums, and in 1935 burials from the town's earliest city cemetery were reinterred here. The cemetery stands as a continuing record of San Saba's earliest citizens and its changing community.
Why it matters
Fraternal orders like the Odd Fellows shaped civic and charitable life across 19th-century America, and this cemetery preserves both that legacy and the town's founding generations.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
San Saba County Courthouse
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San Saba County was created by the Texas Legislature in 1856, and a frame courthouse and later a stone one served its people on this site through the nineteenth century. In 1910, with the city newly incorporated and a railroad connection on the way, residents authorized a grand replacement. Alabama architect Walter Chamberlain designed this Classical Revival building of pressed brick and rusticated sandstone, finished just as the first train arrived in August 1911.
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Elijah Estep, San Saba County's second tax assessor-collector, built this two-story building of locally quarried limestone facing the courthouse in the early 1870s, running a mercantile store nearby. Long mislabeled the "Burden Hotel," records show it was Estep's own construction on a lot he bought in 1871. It later served as attorney Leigh Burleson's law office and passed through other hands, narrowly escaping demolition in the 1990s before being donated and restored to its 1911 appearance.
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