Scranton Cemetery
Cisco, Eastland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
SETTLED IN THE 1870s, THE SCRANTON COMMUNITY GREW TO INCLUDE A POST OFFICE, STORES, A COTTON GIN, BLACKSMITH, SCHOOL AND ACADEMY. IN OCT. 1896, JOSEPH JACKSON RAY AND SARAH FRANCES (MORGAN) RAY DONATED LAND FOR A BAPTIST CHURCH AND GRAVEYARD. THE EARLIEST BURIAL HAD ALREADY OCCURRED IN JULY, THAT OF ALVIN SPRAWLS, INFANT SON OF H.B. AND M.E. SPRAWLS. A CEMETERY ASSOCIATION FORMED IN 1968. THE SCRANTON COMMUNITY CENTER HOSTS FUNERAL SERVICES, VISITATIONS, AND AN ANNUAL SCRANTON HOMECOMING. DOZENS OF MILITARY VETERANS DATING FROM THE CIVIL WAR ARE BURIED HERE, ALONG WITH EARLY SETTLERS, EDUCATORS, AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS. THE CEMETERY IS A TESTAMENT TO THE PIONEERING MEN AND WOMEN OF THE COMMUNITY.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settled in the 1870s, Scranton grew into a full community with a post office, stores, cotton gin, blacksmith, school, and academy. In 1896 Joseph Jackson Ray and his wife Sarah donated land for a Baptist church and graveyard, though the first burial — an infant of the Sprawls family — had already taken place that July. A cemetery association formed in 1968, and the nearby community center still hosts services and an annual homecoming. Veterans from the Civil War onward lie here alongside the settlement's pioneers, educators, and officials.
Why it matters
Scranton Cemetery stands as a testament to the pioneering families who built — and still gather to remember — one of Eastland County's early prairie communities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1870s, the rolling prairies of what became Eastland County, Texas, were opening to settlement. The frontier was pushing west, and families arrived with wagons, tools, and the hope of turning grassland into farm country. Cotton was king across much of Texas, and a community's survival depended on the machinery and trades that let a crop become cash.
Scranton grew into exactly that kind of place. A post office tied it to the wider world, stores and a blacksmith kept daily life running, and a cotton gin turned the surrounding fields into income. A school and an academy meant the settlers intended to stay — you do not build a place of learning for a camp you plan to abandon.
These small prairie communities were the connective tissue of rural Texas. Most never grew into cities, but each one was a whole world to the people who lived there: a place where you were born, married, buried, and remembered.
People & events
The heart of this story is a gift of land. In October 1896, Joseph Jackson Ray and his wife, Sarah Frances Morgan Ray, deeded ground for a Baptist church and a graveyard — the two institutions that anchored community life on the frontier, one for the living and one for the dead.
But the graveyard was already in use before the paperwork was signed. That July, the community had buried Alvin Sprawls, the infant son of H.B. and M.E. Sprawls. It is a quietly heartbreaking detail: the first person laid to rest here was a baby, and the ground was consecrated by grief before it was formalized by a deed.
The story did not end with the founding generation. In 1968 a cemetery association formed to care for the grounds, and the nearby community center still hosts funeral services, visitations, and an annual Scranton Homecoming — proof that the descendants of these families keep returning to honor where they came from.
Its place in the American story
Scranton Cemetery is a small window onto a very large American pattern: the settlement of the western frontier by ordinary families in the decades after the Civil War. Multiply this one prairie community by thousands, and you have the story of how the interior of the country was farmed, schooled, and rooted.
The veterans buried here — dozens of them, from the Civil War onward — tie this quiet ground to the nation's larger conflicts. The men and women beside them were the educators, officials, and pioneers who did the unglamorous work of building a society from open land.
A cemetery like this one is a genuine historical archive. Every headstone is a primary source, and together they record the full span of a community's life, from its hopeful beginning to the families who still gather to remember it.
If you visit
Come to Scranton Cemetery for the feel of the wide Texas prairie and the sense of standing where a whole community's memory is kept. This is a place to slow down, walk the rows, and read the names — the dates alone tell you a story of settlement, hard work, and endurance.
Look for the oldest stones and the graves of veterans, which span generations of American service. Notice the mix of family names that repeat across the plots; those repetitions are the shape of a community, marriages and kinships written in stone.
If your travels bring you through Eastland County, this is the kind of stop that rewards curiosity over spectacle. It pairs naturally with a slow drive through the surrounding countryside, where the fields and open horizon look much as they did to the pioneers who chose to make their home — and their final rest — here.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Joseph Jackson Ray
- · Sarah Frances Morgan Ray
- · Alvin Sprawls
Themes & tags
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