Historical Marker
Oaklawn Cemetery
Historical marker location:
Somerville, Texas
( on SH 36, northern edge of town at intersection with CR 422, Somerville)
Marker installed: 1996
Dating to 1900, this graveyard was first called the Somerville and Lyons Cemetery. Land was purchased by J. W. Lauderdale to establish a cemetery upon the death of his two-year-old son Charles on November 6, 1900. The name was changed to Oaklawn Cemetery in 1913. Among the more than 2000 burials are 22 Civil War veterans, 20 children between 1900-1905, and victims of a typhoid fever epidemic in 1903. The construction of the dam at Somerville in 1963 caused 16 people to be reinterred here from other graveyards. The cemetery is still in use.