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Texas Ghost
Town
ELDRIDGE , TEXAS
by Delbert
Trew
First Cemetery in Gray County 1888-89
Second Settlement in Gray County
Gray County, Texas Panhandle
Located on Texas FM 291 and County Road X
5 Miles North of Alanreed,
Tx
I-40, Exit 135 |
History in
a Pecan Shell
Eldridge, located at the forks of North McClellan Creek and McCellan
Creek, was named after a Colonel Eldridge, stationed at nearby Fort
Elliot. The site was first used as a cantonment supply depot for the
Army during the Red River Wars. The first settler lived in a dugout
working as a line-rider for the U-U Ranch. Barton and Wynne built
a horse ranch on the creek and a mail coach stop was established in
about 1888.
Several dugouts were used by travelers at the forks of the creeks
in Elfin Grove where the mail coach stop was located. Periodic flooding
forced a move one-half mile North to a meadow alongside North McCellan
Creek.
Eventually, a U.S. Post Office opened in March 1886. A blacksmith
shop and officer's quarters were built along with several tents, dugouts
and a shed-stable for the mounts of the officers. After the Indians
were removed from the area, all military operations were halted.
The Eldridge Cemetery was established in 1888. Several earlier
burials were thought to have been made, but the earliest tombstone
is marked 1890 for Janie Woods Shelton, the wife of trail driver Joe
Shelton who later became post master. Mysteriously, three-year old
O.L. Owen was buried in 1892 with the grave marked with a re-cycled
tombstone.
In 1874 Johnson Wartham, a Confederate War Veteran, was buried after
dying from Typhoid Fever. Tennie Cupell died in childbirth in 1896,
but the baby lived. A twelve-year-old girl, name unknown, was buried
in 1896 after dying from a rattlesnake bite suffered while riding
on the wagon tongue of their covered wagon. The family camped on the
creek for days gathering small white rocks for the grave and planting
two cedar trees.
Prairie fire destroyed the wooden grave markers in the 1920s leaving
some burial sites without markings. Two caskets were removed to the
Alanrreed Cemetery in 1919. Local citizens keep the cemetery clean,
built a few crosses for known graves and elrected a metal sign for
the entrance.
Today, Eldridge is all on private lands but is viewable to the public
from the highway if you know where to look. The cemetery is open to
the public on County Road X.
© Delbert Trew |
Eldridge,
Texas Forum
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