William Carvin Winters

Bigfoot, TX

William A. A. Wallace—known far and wide as "Big Foot"—became a legend of the Texas frontier as a soldier, ranger, and mail rider. Through decades of hard service he helped guard the advancing line of settlement against raids and danger until his death in 1899. His nickname and exploits made him one of the most storied figures of nineteenth-century Texas.

Lytle, TX

Established in 1870 on land given by pioneer James M. Jones, this was the first public cemetery in the once-thriving frontier town of Benton City, known in its day for a fine school, busy businesses, and its own newspaper. Jones and his family had settled here in 1869, when Atascosa County was still a raw edge of South Texas. Buried in its grounds are pioneers and veterans reaching from the Indian-frontier era through the Civil War and both World Wars.

Leming, TX

In August 1813, amid the upheaval of Spain's collapsing empire, the Republican Army of the North—American volunteers, Tejanos, Mexicans, and Native Americans who had seized San Antonio in the name of an independent Texas—marched south and was ambushed near the Medina River. Spanish General Joaquín de Arredondo crushed them in the bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil; fewer than 100 of some 1,400 escaped, and most captives were executed. Among Arredondo's officers was a young Antonio López de Santa Anna, who would return decades later.

San Antonio, TX

This burial ground traces to Samuel McCulloch, Jr., wounded at Goliad in October 1835 in the opening weeks of the Texas Revolution and long remembered as among its first casualties. He received this land as a bounty for that service, and the earliest marked grave belongs to his father, who died in 1855. After McCulloch deeded acreage to a Baptist congregation in 1861, the site grew into a community cemetery holding area pioneers, Civil War veterans, and noted potter Louis Meyer.