White Rose Cemetery

The town of Wills Point was established in the early 1870s on the Texas and Pacific Railroad. It was named for the log cabin/trading post established at a nearby site on the Dallas-Shreveport Road by early settler William Wills. This cemetery began with the burial of Wills on family land in 1864. Wills' widow, Mary Ann (Phillips), set aside eight acres here in a grid pattern and sold lots for community burials.

Although the graveyard was known as the Wills Point Cemetery in 1874, the White Rose Cemetery Association was formed that year to maintain the grounds. In 1886 Mary Wills retained the family burial plot and deeded the remainder of the eight-acre graveyard to the Wills Point Cemetery.

The White Rose Cemetery Association fenced the grounds and erected a gate with a connecting archway at the graveyard's west entrance in 1901. In 1909 the association obtained a state charter and officially renamed the graveyard White Rose Cemetery. The cemetery was enlarged over the years and by 1964 covered about 45 acres. Among the cemetery's approximately 31,500 burials are many of the area's pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Vietnam War.

Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.