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Submitted: 1/17/14 • Approved: 1/18/14 • Last Updated: 3/25/18 • R2282-G0-S3
2 Feb 1864 - 5 Feb 1886
Memorial
The earliest known and marked grave in Terry County is of a cowboy, R. Lee Stroud, born February 2, 1864; died February 5, 1886 (barely legible). Young Stroud was a cowboy from the New Mexico area who had traveled down Sulphur Draw to Big Spring for supplies. There were Strouds in extreme western Hockley County, one who even became an early Hockley County sheriff. Perhaps Lee Stroud belonged to that family.
The story is that the young cowboy had developed pneumonia and died on the trail to or from Big Spring. His fellow cowpunchers were either trying to take him home for burial or to get him to Big Spring for a doctor's care. Whatever the case, they decided to bury him on a rise on the south side of Sulphur Draw south of where Brownfield now stands. According to unwritten accounts, young Stroud's parents learned of his death and came a year or so later and placed a marker and fence around the site. The marker was as tall as the fence that surrounds the grave, but it has broken in half and the top is now propped against the bottom half.
An early owner of the property said that at one time there were two small unmarked graves next to R. Lee's grave, but because they are unmarked, they are no longer visible. Perhaps the parents of the two little ones did not want to leave their bodies on the prairie alone, so they buried the children next to the Stroud grave.
(p. 44, Terry County, Texas, Terry County Historical Commission, 2001, LC 2002100347)
Photo Courtesy Tommy Hamilton
Contributed on 1/17/14
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Record #: 2282