Shannon Cemetery
Shannon, Clay County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established near a flourishing spring of water and a general store in 1878, the settlement around this site was known as Stampede Springs. The first burial in this cemetery was that of Mary W. Gibson (1824-1879). Trustees of the Stampede Springs School community purchased five acres including this site for a school, church and grayeyard in 1880. A post office opened in 1893, and the town was renamed Shannon, either by the U. S. Postal Service or by local settlers. In 1907 another acre was donated to the cemetery. The population of Shannon was 112 in the mid-1920s. A cemetery association was established in 1949. In 1990 the population was 23. There were 311 graves in the cemetery at the end of the 20th century, with 104 family names represented. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began with a settlement called Stampede Springs, drawn together in 1878 by a reliable spring and a general store. By 1880 the community had bought land for a school, church, and graveyard, and after a post office opened in 1893 the town took the name Shannon. Its population peaked near 112 in the 1920s before dwindling to a couple dozen by 1990, leaving the cemetery—with hundreds of graves and scores of family names—as the fullest record of a fading rural community.
Why it matters
Country cemeteries like this are the durable archive of the small farming communities that rose and quietly emptied across the American heartland, preserving names and kinship long after the town itself is gone.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Joy United Methodist Church
Clay County, TX
The oldest church in the Joy community began in April 1881 as a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, when the settlement was still called Fannin Town. The founders met under an oak tree beside a log schoolhouse, ground now part of Joy Cemetery, and built their first sanctuary in 1891. From frontier camp meetings to modern outreach, the congregation has been a mainstay of rural life for well over a century.
Hawkins Chapel
Loving, TX
In 1876 S. J. Hawkins brought his family to the Young County frontier, and kin and neighbors soon gathered around his homestead to form a pioneer community. A school rose in 1879, a summer brush-arbor camp meeting began in 1882, and a Methodist chapel followed in 1884, with a cemetery taking its first burial in 1889. The school and church eventually closed, but descendants still gather each summer beside the cemetery that endures.
Salt Creek Cemetery
Jacksboro, TX
James N. Jonas and his wife Caroline settled the Salt Creek community around 1876. Two years later, when a child in a wagon-traveling family died nearby, the Jonases offered a place on their land to bury it — and later gave acreage for a full community cemetery, also known as Dark Corner. The historic Salt Creek schoolhouse still stands to the east and hosts the cemetery association's annual workday. Among nearly 200 graves are veterans reaching from the U.S.-Mexico War to the Korean conflict.
Lindale Cemetery
Bowie, TX
Named for the Lindale School District, this Montague County burial ground was established in 1880 when the Gibbins family sold a single acre to school trustees for four dollars. The graves gather generations of the farming families — Cooper, Griffin, Thomas and others — who settled the Lindale community, along with veterans of both World Wars. By the close of the century more than 250 graves marked the site.