Senterfitt Cemetery
Lometa, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer Reuben S. Senterfitt came to this area in the 1860s. A town named for him gradually built up and at its peak boasted hotels, mills, stores, saloons, a school, churches, a stage stop, and this cemetery. The town declined after it was bypassed by the railroad in the 1890s. The cemetery contains the graves of many early settlers. The oldest documented burial here is that of Joseph C. Howell, who died in 1877 at the age of three. Also interred in the graveyard are veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pioneer Reuben S. Senterfitt arrived in the 1860s, and a town bearing his name grew up around him—at its height boasting hotels, mills, stores, saloons, a school, churches, and a stage stop. When the railroad bypassed the town in the 1890s, it withered away, leaving this cemetery as one of its few surviving traces. Among the graves are early settlers and veterans of conflicts from the Civil War through Vietnam, the oldest being three-year-old Joseph C. Howell, who died in 1877.
Why it matters
Senterfitt is a classic Texas ghost town, and its cemetery is the last witness to how the arrival—or absence—of a railroad could make or unmake a community.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Reuben S. Senterfitt
- · Joseph C. Howell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Phantom Hill Road
Lometa, TX
In 1851–52 the U.S. Army reorganized its frontier defenses, building a line of seven forts from the Red River to the Rio Grande to guard remote settlements and the roads west to California. Fort Phantom Hill, established in 1851, was tied to headquarters in Austin by the Phantom Hill Road—the first road in Lampasas County—along which mule and ox trains of up to twenty-four wagons hauled supplies. Used by the military until the fort's 1854 abandonment, the road later served settlers before traffic shifted to a stage station around 1870.
Sion Record Bostick
San Saba, TX
Sion Record Bostick lived the whole sweep of early Texas history. As a teenager he was among the party of young Texans who captured the fleeing General Santa Anna after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. He went on to fight Comanches at Plum Creek, serve in the Mexican War, and enlist with Hood's Brigade during the Civil War before becoming a fixture at veterans' reunions.
Goldthwaite Memorial Cemetery
Goldthwaite, TX
Three local men bought this ground for a cemetery in 1888, with Houston Roberts the first laid to rest. The Odd Fellows Lodge acquired and expanded it in 1894; among its stories is that of Watson Whittaker, killed in an 1898 train robbery and carried home by a funeral train that made headlines. The city took ownership in 1943, and community groups later added memorials honoring the area's veterans.
Caradan Cemetery
Goldthwaite vicinity, TX
After the Civil War, families settled the Mills County area first called Lookout, and in 1889 A. F. Smith deeded two acres for a public school. When the infant son of the Nixon family died that year, he was buried on the school land, seeding a cemetery that remained when the school later burned and moved. More than 150 graves include veterans from the Civil War through both World Wars, and the burial ground endures as one of the few remnants of the vanished town of Caradan.