City Cemetery | |
![]() The entrance to the cemetery off Comal Street | |
Location | 16th & Navasota Austin, Texas, US |
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Coordinates | 30°16′36″N97°43′35″W / 30.27667°N 97.72639°W |
MPS | East Austin MRA |
NRHP reference No. | 85002297 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 17, 1985 |
Oakwood Cemetery, originally called City Cemetery, is the oldest city-owned cemetery in Austin, Texas. Situated on a hill just east of I-35 that overlooks downtown Austin, just north of the Swedish Hill Historic District and south of Disch-Falk Field, the once-isolated site is now in the center of the city.
The cemetery was established in 1839. Its oldest currently-standing monument commemorates two victims of a Comanche attack who perished in 1842.
The cemetery was renamed Oakwood in 1907 per city ordinance. It spreads over 40 acres (160,000 m2), including an annex across Comal Street to the east established in 1914, and includes sections historically dedicated to the city's black, Latino, and Jewish populations. Paupers were historically buried in unmarked graves on the cemetery's south side. Graves without permanent markers were subject to reburial after a given period.
In 1914, the Oakwood Cemetery Mortuary Chapel was built on a design by Texas architect Charles Henry Page as a site for memorial services. The chapel was later renovated and remodeled in 1944 under the direction of local architect J. Roy White. [2]
The cemetery became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1972 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985; its annex was added on October 30, 2003. The view of the Texas State Capitol from Comal Street in the center of the cemetery became one of the Capitol View Corridors protected under state and local law from obstruction by tall buildings in 1983. [3] Despite its protected status, the cemetery had been subject to crime, vandalism, and decay for decades until significant restoration efforts began in the mid 2010s.
In addition, three victims of the unidentified serial killer dubbed the Servant Girl Annihilator are buried in Oakwood; Eula Phillips (1868-1885) and Susan Hancock (1840-1885), who were both murdered the night of December 24th, 1885; and Rebecca Ramey (1839-1909), who survived an earlier attack in which her daughter Mary was killed.
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