rake at red mud

 

The Red Mud Cemetery started in an open pasture.  According to an oral history about Tap Cemetery, as it was once called, persons of the community began to see the need of protection from the livestock as more people were being buried in the cemetery.  "The story goes that Mrs. Manning out looking for her milk cows and Mrs. Airhart looking for her cows met near the cemetery. They stopped for a chat and were the first to discuss the need of a fence around the cemetery. Anxious to get something done about it, there was a box supper held in the Airhart home to raise the money for the first fence to be placed around this cemetery. The post were to be cut out of the Spur Ranch pasture. Each man was to be allowed the privilege of cutting twenty (20) post to be used for this purpose. A work day was set to put up this fence which could be called the first cemetery working ever to be held here, this was in 1904. This was a barbed wire fence, later another box supper was held in the school house for the same purpose and a small mesh net wire fence was put around it. Later in about 1925 a hogwire fence with cedar post was built, some of which is still being used. When this first fence was to be put up, Grandpa Sparks gave an acre of land to be used. W.H. Martin, who owned the adjoining place north of the cemetery gave another acre."  Today a barbed fence and gate still protect the cemetery from cattle.

 



 

Red Mud Cemetery

Dickens County, Texas

8.16.2014

bury me on the lone prairie

 

Some leave floral tributes but these young cowboys are honored with ropes.  Each June since about 1904 family members gather at Red Mud Cemetery for the annual cleaning.  The ropes appear recently and reverently placed.  Until 1990s there was also a tabernacle for "dinner on the grounds." In early times there were a number of large elm trees that provided shade. It was a real work morning, hoeing and repairing graves. A huge lunch followed, spread on makeshift tables. After lunch there would be a variety of entertainment; group singing, quartets, duets, and solos The elms trees are gone and a pole arbor replaces the building.  The first burial here, originally known as Tap Cemetery, was a homesteader who was shot over a horse in April 1886.  His wife died of tuberculosis a few months later and was buried beside on the home place..  Located about 11 miles southwest of Spur, one approaches the cemetery across a cattle guard and a few miles along a red dust road.  Good thing the weather was dry, or the road probably would have be "red mud" just like the so-named Little Red Mud Creek nearby.

 

Red Mud Cemetery

Dickens County, Texas

8.16.2014