05/27/2026
I’ve been making a habit of stopping by old cemeteries I find as I travel across the state. I found this one in Alanreed, Texas; a town that was formerly along Route 66 in the Panhandle.
From the bit of searching I did, her name was Nancy Louisa Baker. She died in 1899 nearby, in a settlement that didn’t even have a real name yet. It hadn’t yet been named Alanreed, there was no railroad, no church and certainly no Route 66. According to the TSHA, some folks called this place “Prairie Dog Town” and others called it “Gouge Eye”, a name given to it after a nearby saloon fight. It sure sounded like a frontier town.
She’s the oldest marked grave in this cemetery according to the historical marker at the gate. It might make her the first person buried here, but I couldn’t confirm that.
The stone says Mrs. Rev. W.H. Baker, which was her husband’s title. Her actual name, Nancy Louisa, survived thanks to whoever thought to write it down in a county record years later.
She was born in 1841 when Texas was still a republic. She lived through the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and somehow ended up way out here in Gray County, which had fewer than 500 people total when she died. The Rock Island railroad that would put this town on the map was still four years away.
I don’t know what brought her or her husband out here. I assume his profession as a minister.
What I do know is she’s still here.
Rural Texas is full of people like Nancy. Folks who did hard things in hard places and didn’t get much credit for it. I think about that every time I find a stone like this one.
They’re the sorts of folks we love to feature on TCR. Ordinary Texans doing extraordinary things. “Back then” or on the back roads, they’re all interesting to me.
