Long Creek Cemetery
This burial ground, also known as Temple Hall Cemetery, is the last remaining vestige of two early pioneer communities in Hood County. It is named for Long Creek, also known as Bee Creek, which runs through the rich farmland of this region. The cemetery served Temple Hall, a community organized by the 1850s, which was thought to be named for an early masonic lodge. Residents of center mill, another area settlement that existed in the mid-to-late 1800s, also used the graveyard, which originated on land donated by area settler John Farrell.
The earliest known burials in Long Creek Cemetery are for the Haley children, who died in 1864 and 1865, respectively. Others buried here include school superintendent, Hood County judge and amateur historian, W.L. Dent; Parker County commissioner Edward C. Atwood; and Hood County commissioner Albert Hall. Also buried here is Thomas Parkinson, who settled in this area around 1859. He built a grist mill on Long Creek and later a cotton gin. Other interments include early settlers, prominent community leaders and veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War. The cemetery features hand-carved markers, curbing, ledger stones, vertical stones, obelisks, grave slabs, and masonic, odd fellows, eastern star and woodmen of the world grave markers.
The Long Creek Cemetery Association, which formed as early as 1909, cares for the burial ground. Today, Long Creek Cemetery is the last visible reminder of early area settlements and serves as a record of the pioneers who settled this region of Hood County.