Houston neighborhoods built on old graveyards
February 21, 2005
By Doug Miller / 11 News
HOUSTON -- Here lies Houston. Amid the brush and overgrowth on a patch of land just north of Montrose, rest lost monuments to the dead.
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"Cemeteries have just mysteriously disappeared, even in this mighty city of Houston," said Charles Cook, graveyard preservationist.
What you would witness is a hike into Houston's past. Angels pray, within sight of the city's skyline, over hundreds of forgotten graves.
"Cemeteries have just mysteriously disappeared, even in this mighty city of Houston," said Charles Cook, graveyard preservationist.
And sometimes, over the abandoned cemeteries, Houston has built.
Today children play in schoolyards near what used to be graveyards.
"There was always the local folklore here that there was an abandoned cemetery in this area," said Anthony Pizzitola, former Fourth Ward resident.
On Houston's east side is what remains of the Harrisburg Cemetery. Preservationists suspect other graves lie beneath the surrounding neighborhood, possibly beneath an elementary school.
And then there's the original Jeff Davis Hospital. They're building artist lofts atop a cemetery for Confederate soldiers.
As Houston has grown into the nation's fourth largest city, generations of Houstonians have been laid to rest in what once was undeveloped land. Some of those graveyards are well marked and well maintained. But in other places, the stones that marked graveyards have been lost to the ages.
At a subdivision in Crosby, back in the early 1980s on a plot of land that encompassed an abandoned cemetery, a developer built a neighborhood where some homeowners later regretted buying.
A television movie told a tale of homeowners haunted by ghosts flying from the forgotten graves, of families attacked by apparitions, and children cursed with cancer.
One couple who was digging a hole for a swimming pool found a corpse buried in the backyard.
But even if you don't believe in stories of ghosts and haunted houses, an old cemetery could hurt a neighborhood's property values.
"We've had similar instances with expensive homes that are near funeral homes. So that, just the thought of having to consistently make that turn as you go home every day, or as you come out to go to work, most people just choose not to be focusing on that," said Beth Wolff, realtor.
And that's part of the reason Trevia Beverly, who's written histories of Houston cemeteries thinks it's a good idea for homebuyers to track their land's heritage.
"There was a time when a developer had no thought at all of bulldozing a cemetery late in the evening or early in the morning and the next day it just wasn't there, but there's houses started on it," said Beverly.
Which brings us back to the old cemetery just north of Montrose. Hacking through the weeds, preservationists have found more than 400 marked plots. But they suspect this land may hold other secrets such as unmarked graves.
And within walking distance of this final resting place, developers are talking about buying land for new inner-city townhomes.
"It's a little morbid for you to want to live where there may be bodies interred at," said Margott Williams, graveyard preservationist.
But all too often, a city renowned for forgetting its past simply forgets where the bodies are buried.
If you're interested in researching the heritage of your neighborhood, a good place to start is the Texas Room of the downtown Houston Public Library. There you'll find records dating back to the founding days of the city of Houston.