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 Amphion and Amphion Cemetery
N 28° 59.975 W 098° 37.908
14R E 535863 N 3207995
The Amphion Cemetery is all that is left to show of the early settlement town of Amphion. The TX historical marker tell a common tale of boom and bust. The street address of the cemetery is 3410 CR 304, Jordanian, TX 78026.
Waymark Code: WM14ZM7
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 09/18/2021
Views: 3
The town was named Amphion, which is said to be the namesake of a Greek mythological god. Amphion and Zethus were twins born to Zeus and Antiope. The twins and their mother fortified Thebes. Later, Amphion, who was a musician and singer, married Niobe; but later, committed suicide after finding out his wife and child had been killed.
If this town was Amphion's namesake, then the town was cursed to die off when the railroads bypassed the then expanding town of Amphion. Sadly, the only thing giving evidence to the prior existence of a town being in this area is this Amphion Cemetery.
The text of this Texas historical marker tell the boom to bust tale of the town of Amphion.
Marker Number: 155
Marker Text:
Amphion traces its beginning to the establishment of Atascosa County's first courthouse which is believed to have been constructed near this site at the county seat of Navatasco in 1857. Amphion, thought to have been named after a figure in Greek mythology, was located within the 17,000-acre ranch of Jose Antonio Navarro, a prominent local rancher and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Amphion was at one time a thriving community with several general stores, a hotel, post office, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, tannery, churches, fraternal lodges and a school. Amphion Cemetery was established about 1870 at this site on land donated by Roy Jenkins and Frank Lozano. Although the earliest recorded gravesite is that of Laura Underwood (d.1891) there is a gravestone with the year 1800 inscribed on its surface that local tradition claims marks the grave of a young boy killed by indians. This cemetery contains the graves of at least two veterans of the American Civil War. When railroad lines were built through Atascosa County in 1907 and 1927 along routes that bypassed Amphion, business activity declined and the community eventually dissolved. Virtually all that remains of the former town of Amphion is this cemetery.
(1992)
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