Hidalgo County Pauper Cemetery

Denton County, Cemeteries of Texas

With permission of Hidalgo County Historical Commission 2008

Transcription & Photos Submitted by Francis Isbell

LOCATION: Hidalgo County Pauper Cemetery is located on East Schunior Street (FM 2128) about .25 mile east of the Expressway (US 281 North) which passes between 23d and 25^th Streets at this point. The cemetery is immediately north of and adjacent to Brushwood Cemetery and extends north to the old Southern Pacific Railroad Right-of-Way. On the west it adjoins Hillcrest Memorial Gardens and Restlawn (black) Cemetery. All four cemeteries are located within Section 15 of Block 246, Tex-Mex Railroad Survey.

SURVEY: Hidalgo County Department of Human Services or Health Department may have records.

HISTORY: Five years after Edinburg (first known as Chapin) was established as the Hidalgo County seat in 1908, trustees James H. Edwards, Washington Barton and Plutarco de la Viña of the newly formed Edinburg Cemetery Association, met December 3, 1913 to establish procedures for marketing burial sites in the new municipal cemetery. John Closner and William F. Sprague had granted a five-acre tract of land for cemetery purposes out of Section 246, Tex-Mex Railroad Survey, the deed being recorded on page 434.book 31 of Hidalgo County deed records. The trustees set aside Block 1 and Lot 9 of Block 5 "for the county at a price of $5 per lot." (From Edinburg, Story of a Town by the Edinburg Bicentennial Heritage Committee, Mrs. Paul Jackson editor, 1977) This was apparently the beginning of the pauper cemetery.

The cemetery measures 5.86 acres, and contains an estimated several hundred graves. It is maintained by the Hidalgo County Buildings and Grounds Department and the Adult Probation Department. It is not active; burials ceased about 1990. The County no longer maintains a pauper cemetery and arranges burials for indigents and "John Does" in private cemeteries.