Shiner Colored Cemetery
Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In February 1898, Nathan Austin, J. H. Hannah, Paul Mitchell and William O’Neal, trustees of the Shiner Colored Cemetery Association, bought 1.2 acres from Adolph and Emilie Hohertz for $100. They established a burial ground for Shiner’s African American citizens on the east side of the city cemetery, to the right of and nearly in front of the main gate. The June 2, 1910 edition of the Shiner Gazette reported the death and burial of J. H. Hannah in the Shiner Colored Cemetery, and also reported that a recent scholastic census showed African American children comprising 20 percent (52 of 259) of Shiner students. The cemetery was bordered by a wire fence, and by the 1940s all the plots had been used. The cemetery was often overgrown and in disrepair, and being at the lower end of a field, drainage was often a problem when it rained. In 1947, the Shiner Cemetery Society agreed to move burials and gravestones to a new site about two miles south known as Blue Bonnet Hill Memory Garden. Historic grave materials, including gravestones of concrete, granite, marble and metal, were moved along with remains. The oldest marked grave at Blue Bonnet Hill is for Thomas Mitchell, who died in November 1899. The Shiner Colored Cemetery now has the appearance of an open field which blooms with wildflowers each spring. However, not all burials were moved, and several unmarked graves were left undisturbed. The cemetery remains sacred ground and a precious record of generations past.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In February 1898 four trustees of the Shiner Colored Cemetery Association bought 1.2 acres to establish a burial ground for the town's African American citizens, set beside the city cemetery. Newspaper accounts recorded burials here and noted that Black children then made up a fifth of Shiner's students. By the 1940s the plots were full and the low-lying, often-neglected ground drained poorly, so in 1947 remains and gravestones were moved to a new site, Blue Bonnet Hill Memory Garden—though not every grave was relocated, and several unmarked burials remain.
Why it matters
Segregated cemeteries like this one bear witness to the lives of African American communities under Jim Crow and to the care their descendants took to honor them.
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Related people
- · Nathan Austin
- · J. H. Hannah
- · Paul Mitchell
- · William O'Neal
- · Thomas Mitchell
Themes & tags
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