Looking for the Eagle Ford Cemetery

by Tony Hanson

As part of our ongoing research into historical burial sites in the Dallas area we encountered several death certificates that identify the “Eagle Ford Cemetery” as the place of burial. However, we have not been able to determine where that cemetery was/is located (or which cemetery these documents were referring to).

• Our DGS Cemetery database contains burials attributed to the Eagle Ford Cemetery, but the associated webpage notes that “the inventory database is based on information from death certificates.”
• In “Births and Deaths in Eagle Ford, Texas” (The Dallas Journal, Volume 57, October 2011 Page: 89), author Barbara Ware said: “Eagle Ford Cemetery is a lost cemetery”.
• RootsWeb has a page for the Eagle Ford Cemetery, but it does not provide a location (just a list of burials).
• The Dallas County Pioneer Association – Cemeteries of Dallas County page says: “Eagle Ford Cemetery – location is unknown”
• Find a Grave – Cemeteries in Eagle Ford, Texas page only lists the Portland Cemento de Grande cemetery.
• BillionGraves.com has no entries for this cemetery.
• The City of Dallas – Public Works Survey Division Cemetery Files, 1887-2005 webpage has only one reference to Eagle Ford:
  • Cemetery: North Dallas Memorial Park
  • Block or abstract #: 634-1/4
  • Also known as: Mount Olive Baptist Church of Eagle Ford (Colored), Horton Family & Crestview Memorial Park, Inc. [ Note: This location cannot be correct: It shows the land for the colored cemetery near Greenwood Cemetery (i.e. Freedman’s Cemetery). ]
• From “Beginnings and Evolution of the Mexican-American Hispanic Communities in Dallas County: People, Places and Folklore”, Alexander M. Troup & Associated, 1998:
  • “3. EAGLE FORD CEMETERY. C. 1870s to 1945, disappeared around the 1950s. …located on the north side of 1-30…” (page 41)
  • “Eagle Ford Cemetery dates back to the days of the Wild West in the 1870s, located on the H. Burnham survey. When the cemetery disappeared, one cannot be too sure to say-some have said around the late 1940s. Folklore has said around the time the freeway came into being as the Fort Worth Turnpike Authority in the late 1950s.” (page 143)
• A Google search revealed one sentence in an impact statement document created in 2000 that may provide a clue: “Finally, the Eagle Ford Cemetery, located east of Loop 12, was reportedly destroyed during construction of IH 30, and a mammoth bone was found in the Loop 12/West Fork of the Trinity River vicinity many years ago (Bill Young, personal communication 2000)”.
  • Refer to the bottom of the 2nd paragraph on image number 18 in the document submitted to the Department of Transportation.
  • “The DFW Turnpike linking Fort Worth to Dallas was completed by 1957, becoming the first segment of Interstate 30.”

If you have any information that would help us determine exactly where this cemetery was located (or where these burials actually occurred) we sure would appreciate hearing from you! Send email to Tony Hanson at president@dallasgenealogy.org.