Oakwood Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the city of Fort Worth, Texas. Deeded to the city in 1879, it is the burial place of local prominent local citizens, pioneers, politicians, and performers. Located at 701 Grand Avenue, Oakwood is a 62-acre cemetery on the north side of the Trinity River, just across the river from downtown Fort Worth. The cemetery is actually composed of three historically distinct cemeteries divided along racial and religious lines: New City Cemetery, the oldest section historically limited to white burials; Trinity Cemetery, designated for African-American burials; and Calvary Cemetery, a section specifically for Catholic burials. The cemetery was designated a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018 and a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966. One grave site within the cemetery is also designated separately as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark since 1983.
History
The original 20 acres that form the City Cemetery were deeded to the City of Fort Worth by local civic leader John Peter Smith in 1879, after the city's oldest cemetery, Pioneers Rest, had rapidly filled. In 1880, a section of the property was partitioned off and limited to Catholic burials at the request of Bishop C.W. Dubois of Galveston. This new Catholic section was named Calvary Cemetery. The Oakwood Cemetery Association formed in 1908 and a chapel was built on the north end of the property in 1912. In 1926 a new Oakwood Cemetery Association charter was instated requiring a five-member board of directors. The president of the Fort Worth National Bank, the institution that held the association's funds in trust, was required to be a director; of the remaining four members, two had to be women. Among the first board members were Jennie Scott Scheuber, a local civic leader and the city's first librarian, and Major K.M. Van Zandt, longtime president of the Fort Worth National Bank. In 1952, the charter was amended to allow board representation from any bank in Fort Worth with oversight of the association's endowment.
Notable graves and monuments
Oakwood Cemetery is home to Bartenders' Row, a section of graves belonging to bartenders from Fort Worth's notorious Hell's Half Acre, and Bricklayers' Row, a section formerly reserved for members of the local bricklayers' union. In 1903, Fort Worth mayor T.J. Powell designated a section of the cemetery, known as Soldiers' Row, for the burial of Confederate Civil War veterans and their wives. Notable local individuals interred at Oakwood Cemetery include:
In December 2017, the 1,100-year-old remains of a Native American woman found by construction workers digging a trench in downtown Fort Worth were buried at Oakwood Cemetery in accordance with NAGPRA requirements; burial rites were performed by local Native American spiritual leaders.
