Postcard From Dobyville Ghost Town

Ghost towns are places where people lived and dreamed and died. They tell the stories of lost lives and abandoned dreams. Often times, the only thing left of an abandoned town is the graveyard. Such is the fate of Dobyville, Texas.

In the state of Texas, there are over 46,000 known cemetery's. No one knows how many others have been lost and forgotten. Time, weather, and vandals destroy the markers. People a generation or two removed from those buried move away and, over time, cannot be bothered to keep up the grounds. Weeds and brush eventually reclaim the land and erase any sign that people were buried there. Sometimes forgotten graves of those gone before us are bulldozed and paved over with highways and subdivisions.

Some of the known cemetery's are well-kept lush parks with mowed green grass, tall shade-trees and water fountains gurgling. Many others though are barren and desolate; quiet places offering stark reminders of our mortality. The Dobyville Cemetery is much closer to the latter than the former. The settlement of Dobyville was established in the 1850's by pioneers who wrestled the land from the Comanche Indians. By the late 1800's, Dobyville had dozens of residents and a post office, a cotton gin and grist and syrup mills. It also had a school, the Lone Star School, with 1 teacher for its 56 students.

WW II soldier killed in action near the

end of the war

Hard times and the hard limestone underlying the ground began to make it too hard to earn a living and the town began to decline in the early 1900's. Better job opportunities became available in larger cities and better roads made it easy to get away. The post office closed in 1900 and the school consolidated with the Lake Victor school district in 1921. In the 1940's there were few residents to take part in the community spring rabbit drive. The annual community event took place on a Saturday in late March or early April and families would gather for a day of hunting and picnicking, but by 1949, only a few scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps. Only a cemetery remained by the 1980s.

Although still active, the Dobyville Cemetery is a typical quiet, country resting place where love ones, recent and from years past, rest in eternal peace. Few people know about this place and drivers on U.S. Highway 281 will speed past it without seeing, without knowing that here lies people who lived their lives, dreamed their dreams, loved and were loved, laughed and cried and at one time, were important to someone.

Baby's grave - always sad to see

Another child's grave. RIP little one