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| History
in a Pecan Shell
Settlement of the area began in the late 1850s. The pastoral beauty of the
place impressed a man named William Stanfield enough to name it after the Roman
Goddess of Dawn.
The town became a trading center for the first twenty years of its existence and
a post office was granted in 1873. Within 10 years Aurora could boast two schools,
two hotels, two gins, and a population that may have been as high as 3,000.
A spotted fever
epidemic in late 1888 practically evacuated the town by 1889 and the Fort Worth
and Denver City Railroad which was due to arrive in 1891 chose nearby Rhome
for their depot instead of Aurora. The town was heading downhill fast. |
| | A
tombstone in Aurora Cemetery
TE Photo, 2-04 |
| In 1897, a local
cotton buyer wrote a story about a crashed
airship near Aurora. What makes this story different from other sightings was
the recovery of “a little green man” (who didn’t survive the crash) and was buried
in the Aurora cemetery. “Airship”
sightings were frequent in the late 1890s and there had been several sightings
in and around Fort Worth. The
story, now over a hundred and seven years old has carved a place for tiny
Aurora in Texas folklore. (See Readers' Forum)
By 1901 postal service was rerouted and the Aurora post office closed. It
might have become a ghost town if not for the 1939 construction of State Highway
114.
Aurora today still retains the rolling terrain and the picturesque
cemetery is just south of the highway – just follow the signs.
©
John Troesser
Aurora
Area Hotels - Book Here & Save
Decatur
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Aurora Cemetery
Historical Marker The
oldest known graves here, dating from as early as the 1860's, are those of the
Randall and Rowlett families. Finis Dudley Beauchamp (1825-1893), a Confederate
veteran from Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to the newly formed Aurora Lodge
No. 479, A.F. & A.M., in 1877. For many years, this community burial ground was
known as Masonic Cemetery. Beauchamp, his wife Caroline (1829-1915), and
others in their family are buried here. An epidemic which struck the village in
1891 added hundreds of graves to the plot. Called "spotted fever" by the settlers,
the disease is now thought to have been a form of meningitis. Located in Aurora
Cemetery is the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris (1891-1893) with its often-quoted
epitaph: "As I was so soon done, I don't know why I was begun." This site is also
well known because of the legend that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and the
pilot, killed in the crash, was buried here. Struck by epidemic and crop failure
and bypassed by the railroad, the original town of Aurora almost disappeared,
but the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves. Veterans of the Civil War,
World Wars I and II,
and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are interred here. |
Aurora
Texas ForumSubject:
Aurora, Texas alien
I am the great-great-great granddaughter of Finis
Dudley Beauchamp. Dudley is the person who donated the family cemetery to the
town of Aurora. My great grandmother, Robbie Reynolds, was the 91 year old person
that so many of the online articles mention as having been interviewed in the
1970's.
As much as I wish the whole story were true, the fact of the
matter is, it's not. My great-grandmother and I were very close. She said that
the whole story was a hoax, and the original interview included that. I'm not
sure how the story went from her saying it was a hoax to the story that her parents
went to check out the situation, and wouldn't allow her to go. In your
article you mention that most people of the time were illiterate. I know for
sure that my great-grandmother and her mother and father could read and write
very well. I also know that Robbie Townsend, the woman for whom my great grandmother
was named, was a teacher.
I know the truth isn't nearly as cool as the
stories that have been told for the last 100 years. I just wanted to set the story
straight. - Sincerely, Robbie Fields, El Paso, Texas, April 09, 2005 |
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