Lesser known, however, are the stories of Terlingua’s Mexican mine workers and the traditional burial ground they built for their loved ones. Descendant organizations like Familias de Terlingua offer a digital space for the region’s legacy Hispanic families to stay connected and provide cemetery visitors with much-needed historical context. Thanks to them, we can continue to speak the names of families buried in Terlingua like Baeza, Molinar, Valenzuela, and Villalba. 

In 2021, the first comprehensive inventory and map was completed by local researcher Thomas C. Alex. Of the 529 burials and monuments inventoried, only 98 have been identified with a specific person.  

Terlingua’s celebrity attention has been bittersweet. Each year, cemetery visitors keep Terlingua’s historic Mexican heritage alive during Dia de los Muertos, while decades of foot traffic from the popular chili cookoffs and ghost town tourism have visibly damaged the one-of-a-kind rock mound graves and historic wood grave fencing. Terlingua locals and descendants believe a healthy balance of tourism and cemetery preservation can be achieved in order to prevent their beloved cemetery from being "loved to death." 

The Elgin Mexican Cemetery, one of our 2023 Historic Texas Cemetery (HTC) designees, was recently nominated to the inaugural list of Endangered Latinx Landmarks, a program led by the nonprofit Latinos in Heritage Conservation that identifies and protects Latinx heritage sites across the U.S. that face immediate threats. The Elgin Mexican Cemetery joins 13 other sites on the list, including Barrio Chihuahuita in El Paso and El Corazon Sagrado de la Iglesia de Jesus, a historic adobe church in Ruidosa.

Established in 1915, the cemetery preserves one-of-a-kind handmade tile and brick markers crafted by Mexican laborers employed at Elgin’s Butler Brick company. The Endangered Latinx Landmark recognition will help local cemetery caretakers raise public awareness around common challenges, such as flooding and headstone repairs.

Dear Hollywood, if you’re in need of a new biopic, look no further than the story of San Benito native Baldemar Huerta, aka Freddy Fender (1937-2006).

It’s an underdog tale of the son of migrant farm workers who reached number one on the Billboard charts with a bilingual Texas sound at a time when Mexican Americans were seeking more opportunities for recognition in media and public life. Nearly two decades since his passing, Fender remains a famous figure in the world of rock, pop, country, and Tejano music. No where is his legacy felt more than in San Benito, home of the Freddy Fender water tower, the recently dedicated Freddy Fender historical marker conveniently located on Freddy Fender Lane, and the massive Freddy Fender Memorial at the San Benito Memorial Park Cemetery.

Hollywood scouts can start their research at the six plaques that surround Fender’s memorial, telling his life story and achievements. In the center, a black granite headstone contains an etching of Fender performing on stage under an eternal spotlight, while the reverse side is engraved with an epitaph that reads: 

Dear cemetery researchers, we’ve been hearing scary stories of an online monster that spins webs of falsehoods about historic Texas cemeteries in your search results and presents them as facts. Beware of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Overview feature! 

You may have noticed a paragraph appearing in the top spot of your internet search results presenting a quick snapshot of what different websites say about your research topic. This is a new feature that attempts to answer your research questions through summaries written by AI technology. We’ve heard more and more complaints from cemetery researchers about inaccurate and downright nonsensical AI summaries that present misleading information about a cemetery topic.

For example, the AI Overview might write a sentence incorrectly claiming that a historic cemetery you're researching is officially designated as a Historic Texas Cemetery (HTC), when in reality this non-HTC cemetery has only been described as "historic" in multiple website articles with names that contain the matching words "Texas Cemetery."

Remember: The THC Atlas is your official resource for checking the designation of a cemetery.