City Cemetery: 1906 to 1932

Location: City Cemetery is located behind Oakland Cemetery at Pine, Electra and Spring street behind Peoples Baptist Church and Opportunity Park.

GPS: 32.764558, -96.756041
Mapsco: 46Y-U
On DGS Cemetery Map
On Google Maps
On Findagrave

Two previous city cemeteries served Dallas, one on Akard Street near the present-day convention center and the earliest one, that many believe lies under Woodall Rodgers Freeway.

In the early part of the 1900s, the citizens of Dallas were concerned about the condition of the burials at Trinity Cemetery (now Greenwood Cemetery) especially the pauper portion. So, on May 17, 1901, the City of Dallas purchased 6 acres behind Oakland cemetery from J A and Mattie Crawford. [Dallas County Deed Book 265, Page 475.] Complaints continue until 1906 when Mayor Curtis Pendleton Smith “ordered that the six acres of land owned by the city at a point near Oakland Cemetery shall be properly surveyed, plotted and prepared for use as a burying ground.” He further stated that “a part at least will be used as the pauper burying ground of the city.” [Source: Dallas Morning News, December 4, 1906, page 5]. By 1910 the situation had not been resolved, so the Commissioners asked the city engineer to determine if the tract could be subdivided into blocks composed of single lots and recommended that the laid off in two sections [Dallas Morning News, October 12, 1910, page 4].

The city and the county shared the responsibility for the burial of pauper dead. A map of the cemetery obtained from the Dallas Municipal Archives files shows the City Pauper Cemetery, Negro Section City Cemetery, and Dallas County Paupers Cemetery. View Map

Eventually death certificates were issued for either Mount Auburn Cemetery or City Cemetery. The records presented here City Cemetery contains burial from 1910 to around 1932. There are only a few tombstones in the area of City Cemetery and Mount Auburn Cemetery. The entries in the database are based on Texas Certificates of Death available through FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com.

See the information page and database for Mount Auburn Cemetery for those buried there.

In 1932 the city purchased 10 acres from Forest Lawn Cemetery in northeast Dallas and established a new Dallas City Cemetery.