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31 THE PAST AT REST: TWO HISTORIC AUSTIN CEMETERIES by L. Patrick Hughes  The looks of disbelief and inevitable questions are remarkably similar year after year. “We’re going where?” Patiently I explain that classes next week will be held off-campus at the Texas State Cemetery on East Seventh Street and Oakwood Cemetery alongside Interstate 35. “What,” my students ask, “do graveyards have to do with this course on Texas history?” “A great deal,” I respond, guaranteeing that our cemetery tours will bear physical witness to much that we have discussed in class. I promise to illustrate the remarkably different ways different cultures approach the burial ceremony, and to reveal the meanings of gravestone symbols stretching back thousands of years. Such visits are one of the more effective learning opportunities for those studying the state’s rich history and peoples. The State Cemetery dates from Edward Burleson’s death in 1851. Wishing to honor the former vice-president of the Republic of Texas, state legislators arranged for his interment on land owned by Andrew Jackson Hamilton, himself a future governor. Three years later, the state purchased eighteen acres from Hamilton to serve as the final resting place for Texas heroes and high-ranking government officials. Based on the nineteenth century concept that cemeteries could serve as museums for the living as well as resting places for the departed, the Board of Control has managed the facility over the intervening years as the “Arlington of Texas.” It certainly has that look and feel, especially in the southeastern section where row after symmetrical row of identical white headstones mark the graves of over two thousand Confederate veterans, widows, and relatives. Interestingly, an acre in the northeast corner was set aside following the War Between the States for federal troops who perished during the Reconstruction occupation of the Lone Star State. These remains were subsequently moved to the national cemetery at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. At Republic Hill, situated on a rolling hillside covered with stately oaks from which downtown Austin is visible, three hundred of the most prominent figures of Texas history lie in peaceful rest. Many were reinterred from various sites across the state and nation over the last century. In contrast to Oakwood, the State Cemetery has been well maintained and has throughout the decades exuded the intended aura of exclusivity and its official status. Funeral processions pass through the Rose Gate and the Columbarium fashioned from granite blocks with niches for burial urns. A series of reflection ponds separated by waterfalls greets guests emerging from the Visitors Center, inspired by the long barracks at the Alamo. The Hilltop affords an overview of the entire cemetery, while the Plaza de los Recuerdos, a memorial consisting of thirty-one massive limestone tablets, commemorates several thousand individuals who have made significant contributions to Texas since its inception. Over all, atop a one hundred-and-fifty32 “Final” Resting Places Entrance to Texas State Cemetery foot tall flagpole waves a state flag the size of a four-car garage, visible all the way from Interstate 35. Republic Hill is and will always be the heart of the State Cemetery . In peaceful quiet, the panoramic sweep of Texas history rolls by monument after monument. Here lie Stephen F. Austin, General Albert Sidney Johnston, and Governor Edmund J. Davis, with their stories of colonization and revolution, the sacrifice of Texans on every battlefield of the Civil War, and the tumultuous years of Reconstruction. The headstones of “Ma” and “Pa” Ferguson, Alvin J. Wirtz, Allan Shivers, and Ralph Yarborough bring the twentieth century alive. Their monuments evoke remembrances of wars with the Ku Klux Klan, the Lower Colorado River Authority’s transformation of Hill Country life, and the life-or-death struggles between liberals and conservatives for control of the Lone Star State’s Democratic party. “Three Legged Willie” Williamson, Josiah Wilbarger, Bigfoot Wallace, Edwin Waller, J. Frank Dobie, Walter Prescott Webb, and Barbara Jordan: each has a story and a lesson to impart to those who wish to truly know this place called Texas. A visit to Oakwood Cemetery is a different but equally rewarding experience. Created by the Republic of Texas in 1836 and deeded to the City of Austin twenty years later, Oakwood witnessed its first burial in 1841 with the interment of a Negro man reportedly killed by Indians. Nearly twenty-seven thousand burials have taken place in the intervening years. Herein lie the famous, the infamous , and the commoners...

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