Shafter Lake Cemetery

🏛️The era

At the turn of the twentieth century, the far western reaches of Texas were among the last parts of the state to see permanent settlement. For most of the 1800s the high, dry plains near the New Mexico line were the province of Comanche hunters, buffalo herds, and the occasional military column. Only after the Red River War of the mid-1870s pushed the Plains tribes onto reservations did ranchers begin to drive cattle onto this open grassland.

The early 1900s brought another wave: land promoters and hopeful homesteaders, drawn by cheap acreage and by stories that the plains could be farmed. Small settlements appeared almost overnight, often clustered around a reliable water source. A shallow lake on these flat plains was exactly the kind of place people gathered.

Many of those towns did not last. Drought, isolation, and the hard arithmetic of farming semi-arid land emptied them within a generation, and some vanished entirely. The burial grounds they left behind often outlived the towns they served.

👥People & events

The lake, the vanished town, and this cemetery all carry the name of Colonel William R. Shafter. In 1875 he led an army expedition across this little-known country, scouting water sources and terrain in a region that U.S. maps still showed as largely blank. Expeditions like his helped open the plains to the ranchers who came after.

The cemetery itself began just after 1900 on the lake's south bank, about two miles south of the settlement of Shafter Lake. It served the people who lived out here: families on remote ranches and travelers who died far from home. In a country where the nearest town might be a long day's ride away, a shared burial ground was one of the few pieces of community life people could count on.

The oldest stones that can still be read date to 1909 and mark Joseph Snively and Mrs. Lucy Woolsey. Little else about them is recorded on the marker, and it is honest to leave them that way: two people whose names survived when much of their world did not. Over the years, some families moved their relatives' remains elsewhere, and only twelve known graves remain.

For a time the cemetery was neglected, which is a common fate once a town disappears and its families scatter. Andrews County later took over its care, so the place where these settlers were buried is still looked after.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Shafter Lake Cemetery is a small piece of a very large American story: the closing of the frontier. Army expeditions mapped the land, the Plains tribes were forced out, and then ranchers and homesteaders followed. That sequence played out across the West, and this quiet plot sits at its tail end, where it ran out on the southern High Plains.

William R. Shafter's name ties the site to a long military career. He went on to command American forces in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The same officer who once scouted for water holes on the Texas plains later led an army overseas. His career followed the country's own path from continental expansion to overseas power.

The cemetery also stands for the many boom-and-bust communities of the early 1900s. Across the Great Plains, towns were founded on optimism and abandoned when the land proved harsher than promised. Often a graveyard like this one is the only evidence that people lived there at all.

🧭If you visit

The marker sits near Frankel City, and the cemetery itself lies about a mile and a half to the west, near the lakebed that gave it its name. Expect wide, flat country, big sky, and few landmarks. That openness is part of the experience: it shows you how isolated the ranch families buried here really were.

This is a small site with only a dozen known graves, so take your time. Look for the oldest legible stones from 1909 and notice how the markers vary in style and material. In remote country, a family used whatever it could afford or make. Please treat the graves with care, stay on obvious paths, and leave everything as you found it.

Pair the stop with a drive across Andrews County to get a feel for the High Plains, which ranching shaped first and oil later. Bring water, check the weather, and plan for long distances between services. This is still the kind of place where the next town is a good way down the road.