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The City of Austin reached capacity for African Americans’ burial spaces in the segregated section of the city cemetery around the turn of the 20th century, leaving black Austinites with no municipal space to bury their deceased. Recognizing this need in 1925, the city purchased a 15-acre tract from D.V. Pickle for Evergreen Cemetery. In 1926, the first section of the cemetery was platted and lots became available for purchase. In 1928, the City of Austin adopted its first city plan which codified the Jim Crow-era “separate but equal” policy of racial segregation. The city only offered municipal services and schools to African Americans in east Austin. It is likely that the establishment of Evergreen Cemetery was an early part of that effort.
In 1955, Evergreen Cemetery expanded by 16 acres through the purchase of property owned by the Stiles family. The Stiles tract included a portion of the former Highland Park Cemetery, a 60-acre burial ground established in 1891 by Dr. Edmund Stiles. The only existing Highland Park Cemetery burial records are from 1891-1893 and indicate over half of the 163 burials were African Americans. However, by 1907, Dr. Stiles had moved to Houston, and the cemetery ceased operations by 1925.
Those interred in Evergreen Cemetery include many respected members of the original segregated neighborhoods of east Austin. Some notable graves found here are those of Civil Rights activists Juanita Craft and Willie Mae Kirk, religious leader Maud A.B. Fuller, sports figure Dick “Night Train” Lane, and prestigious educator John Q.T. King. Although this cemetery was established during a painful time of racial segregation, it stands as a significant chronicle of the east Austin community and for all of Austin.
HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2019
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