Holt Cemetery Arch - 1909 - Hunchinson County, TX
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 36° 01.443 W 101° 13.818
14S E 299033 N 3988917
Both cemetery and the arch created in 1909, or so I was told by the local at the school.
Waymark Code: WMTH89
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/25/2016
Views: 3
County of arch: Hutchinson County
Location of arch: CR-22, Holt Cemetery, just N. of FM-281, 6 miles E. of TX-207, 16 miles N. of Stinnett
Interesting to note, this arch is not attached to the fence and TRULY stands alone. It was originally the entrance point, but now stand as a eye catcher behind the fence.
The entrance gates are about 60 yards further to the left (south) and 20 yards to the right (north) of the arch
Number of Graves: Listed as 150
Originally two acres in size, but another acre was added when the school property was transferred to the Association in 1949.
The arch is made of two steel reinforced girder rod welded into sewer pipe sung deep in the ground as foundation for the arch. The girder rods are painted white. Square steel rods ware welded across and between the girder rods and also painted white.
Between the square steel rods are welded steel plate letters spelling HOLT CEMETERY painted black, and in a drop down arch, and much smaller size, also black are small rod holding the date 1909.
Just for fun, there is a THC marker here about the cemetery:
"In the late 1890s Texas enacted colonization and homestead laws that significantly quickened the settlement of the then sparsely populated Panhandle region of North Texas. Hutchinson County soon recorded the required 150 applications for land purchases in the county to formally organize in 1901. In 1903 early county settlers Benjamin and Birda May (Kirk) Holt donated seven acres here to be used as the site of a community schoolhouse and cemetery. The first person buried here was Nola Storrs in 1909.
"A new schoolhouse was built here in 1916 and in 1917 the Holts legally recorded their 7-acre donation. Five acres were set aside for school purposes and two acres for the cemetery, which at that time contained about 11 gravesites. When Holt School trustees deeded the school's five acres and vacated schoolhouse to the Holt Cemetery Association in 1948, about an acre of this property was converted for cemetery use.
"In 1907 the Cemetery Association established policies governing the use of this site. The cemetery, which continues to serve the local community, contains the gravesites of many of this area's first settlers and those of veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict." ~ Texas Historical Commission