1932 – 1978
- LOCATION: 10606 Shady Trail. Dallas. TX
- MAPSCO REFERENCE: 23-S
- GPS Coordinates: 32.8695850, -96.8879600
The Dallas City Cemetery, as its name implies, is owned and maintained by the City of Dallas, Texas. For many years, the cemetery was used as a burial ground for unclaimed or unidentified remains and for individuals unable to afford plots in private cemeteries. As a result of the large transient population in the 1930’s, a great many of the listings are from that decade. The City ceased burials in this cemetery in the late 1970’s.
—Dallas County Texas Genealogical Data from Early Cemeteries, Vol. 3 (fiche).
Dallas Genealogical Society volunteers read the existing markers in 1989 and reviewed city records. For some entries, dates of death were extracted from the Texas Death Certificate Index; these entries were followed by the certificate number. Spellings are as they appeared either on city records or on the grave marker.
The city purchased the land for this cemetery from Forest Lawn Cemetery and Mausoleum on 16 February 1932 [Deed Book 1748, pg 42-43]. For a while both paupers from both the city and the county were interred in this cemetery.
The 1989 published survey has been updated by comparing the list with scanned images of Texas Death Certificates on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com. At times this resulted in a different name or date. It appears that the names on the markers aren’t always the person who is buried there. For example, parent’s first name instead of the child’s. Dates on the markers may be the burial date rather than the death date.
For more information, read Dallas City Cemetery – a brief history in our blog.
