HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Spring Cemetery

Spring, Harris County, Texas

Marker Inscription

After Spring's establishment on the International and Great Northern line in 1873, it became an important railroad center. The Sellers family, early area landowners, donated a portion of their property for a community church and cemetery. The oldest legible tombstone is that of a child, Franklin Leroy Lovins, who died in 1910. Military veterans, including George C. Baker, who served in the Civil War, are also interred here. Gravestones mark nearly 50 burial sites, but many other burials are unmarked. The cemetery stands as a reminder of Spring's heritage as a railroad town. (2001)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

When the International & Great Northern Railroad reached this part of Harris County in 1873, the little stop of Spring grew into a busy shipping and switching town. The Sellers family, among the earliest landowners, set aside ground for a shared church and burying place, and the graves here — the oldest a child's from 1910, alongside a Civil War veteran and dozens of others — trace the ordinary lives that a railroad economy gathered around it. Many more rest here unmarked, their names lost but their place in the town's story kept.

Why it matters

Rural cemeteries like this one are the quiet ledgers of America's railroad towns, recording the families whose labor and burials made a rail junction into a community.

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Related people

  • · Franklin Leroy Lovins
  • · George C. Baker
  • · Sellers family

Themes & tags

TransportationMemorial

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