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Submitted: 5/29/22 • Approved: 5/30/22 • Last Updated: 6/2/22 • R516561-G0-S3
Greenwood Cemetery
Texas Historical Markers
705 Magrill St., Longview, Texas
In 1877, J. M. Cornes purchased four acres on this site and, with county surveyor A. S. Taylor, established the Longview Cemetery, dedicating its streets to public use. It lay barely outside the city limits and immediately north of the junction subdivision platted three years earlier by the International & Great Northern Railroad. In 1884, Cornes and Taylor extended their cemetery to Magrill Street by acquiring 155 feet of the subdivision. Plots provided space for an estimated 3,392 graves exclusive of a Potter's Field. Most remains in the Pioneer Boring and Leake Cemetery (on what became the east end of College Street) were reinterred here. The earliest headstone from that graveyard is that of Louisa Stroud (1820-1856). The earliest marked grave original to this site apparently is that of Ida Denny (1874-1878). The cemetery was renamed Greenwood in 1905, the same year it was included within the city limits. Burials in Greenwood include a veteran of the war of 1812 and 37 known Confederate veterans. Also located here are the graves of three people killed during the 1894 robbery of the First National Bank of Longview by the infamous Dalton Gang, and those of a family that fell victim to the 1900 Galveston storm. Many pioneers and prominent citizens are interred here, including O. H. Methvin, who deeded 150 acres to the Southern Pacific Railroad for the townsite and is known as the father of Longview; Bluford W. Brown, who as state legislator secured the creation of Gregg County; and Britton Buttrill, the Earpville stagecoach stop operator who became a founding commissioner and first treasurer of Gregg County. Greenwood Cemetery is a chronicle of the history of this area
*Photo courtesy of Dee Shappell
Contributed on 5/29/22
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Record #: 516561