Winn Hill Cemetery
Jacksboro vicinity, Jack County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on the historic Butterfield Stage/Overland Mail Route which traversed this area from 1858-61, this graveyard is named for William H. Wynne, who was killed by Indians in this vicinity in 1863. The Winn Hill community grew up around a rural school in the 1870s. The settlement soon included homes and a church, and by the 1880s this cemetery had been established. The earliest documented burial is that of Callie A. Beauchamp, who died in 1884. The county purchased the cemetery property in 1904. It is the last physical reminder of the Winn Hill community. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Winn Hill Cemetery sits along the old Butterfield Overland Mail route that crossed this area from 1858 to 1861. It takes its name from William H. Wynne, killed by Indians nearby in 1863, and grew alongside a rural school and church that formed the Winn Hill community in the 1870s. The earliest documented burial dates to 1884, and the graveyard is now the community's last physical trace.
Why it matters
The cemetery is the enduring record of a frontier settlement that formed around a stage route amid the dangers of the North Texas borderlands.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William H. Wynne
- · Callie A. Beauchamp
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jack County
Jacksboro, TX
Created in 1856 and named for Texas Revolution patriots W. H. and P. C. Jack, Jack County sat squarely on the violent post-Civil War frontier. Its citizens voted overwhelmingly against secession in 1861, and after the war Fort Richardson (1867) anchored the U.S. Army's campaigns against the Plains tribes. The 1871 Kiowa raid on the Warren Wagon Train prompted General Sherman to send Colonel Ranald MacKenzie after the raiders; the resulting trial of chiefs Satanta and Big Tree was among the first prosecutions of Plains Indians in a civilian court. The county was also, improbably, home to a 1907 corn club that helped seed the national 4-H movement.
Town of Antelope
Antelope, TX
Antelope took its name from the springs where pronghorn watered and where the Kiowa once camped. Platted in 1875 along the Henrietta–Graham mail route, it grew into a bustling supply stop for cattle drives heading north, boasting a spa built around its mineral wells, a hotel, school, and 400 residents by 1887. Ranching and later oil kept the community alive well into the twentieth century.
Site of Cottonwood Spring
Olney, TX
A lone cottonwood and a dependable spring made this spot a vital oasis on the nineteenth-century Texas frontier, its ground still scarred by wagon ruts. In 1849 Captain Randolph B. Marcy camped here while mapping a road for California gold-seekers, and over the next decade the spring watered soldiers establishing Fort Belknap, surveyors scouting Indian reservations, and the Butterfield Overland Mail. Rangers and cavalry under "Rip" Ford and Earl Van Dorn also staged here before riding north to fight Comanche raiders.
Palo Pinto County
Palo Pinto, TX
Created in 1856 and organized in 1857, Palo Pinto County takes its Spanish name — "spotted oak" — from the mottled bark of a common regional tree. Its abundant water and game had long made it a favored Indian locality before Anglo-American settlers, including legendary cattlemen and trailblazers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, arrived in the 1850s. The 1880 discovery of mineral water and the coming of the Texas & Pacific Railroad drew a wave of new settlers.