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The Kyle Hanging
Tree
TE photo, August 2001 |
The
Kyle Hanging Tree is about 10 miles south of Kyle
on Old Post Road (CR 136) on your left.
Of all the hanging-tree stories
in Texas, this one is the shortest.
Cowboys found a dead man hanging here and buried him not far from
the trunk of this Live Oak.
This grave for the mystery cowboy became the Kyle Cemetery.
The tree is near the entrance of the cemetery and is easily recognizable
by its shape and its solitary location. |
The Kyle Hanging
Tree plaque
TE photo, August 2001 |
Historical
Marker:
Kyle Cemetery
Many people instrumental
in the early development of this area are buried in Kyle Cemetery.
Colonel Clairborne Kyle, one of Hays
County's original settlers, buried his adopted son, willie Parks,
here in 1849. Although Parks' interment is the first recorded at this
site, local tradition claims that a man found hanging from a live
oak tree located within these cemetery grounds was the first person
buried here; that tree was thereafter referred to as "the hanging
tree."
Although it is believed that Claiborne Kyle set aside fifteen acres
of his land surrounding these early interments for use as a community
the first legal document mentioning Kyle Cemetery is a deed executed
by his son, Polk, donating 5 acres for a burial ground in 1877. five
additional acres were purchased for the cemetery in 1899 from Jason
and Fannie Wilson by trustees w. L. Stephenson, J. H. white and d.
W. Benner. Another five acres were donated to the newly incorporated
cemetery in 1906 by O. G. Parke. Among the gravesites here are those
of many area pioneers, including the Claiborne Kyle family, Edward
Burleson, Jr., Ezekiel Nance, and veterans of the American Civil War,
World Wars I and
II, the
Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War.
More Texas Cemeteries
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Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
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