Etched in stone

Blood, brains and brawn settled the Texas Panhandle. Pioneers, tough and tenacious, shaped a region whose harsh, unrelenting weather turned away the most spirited of souls. Many names are familiar because they live in lore, but others, mostly unknown outside their communities, laid the framework for medicine, religion, ranching and government as people of the High Plains know them today. In the scrapbooks of marble called cemeteries - places we race by without stopping - students of history can learn without taking a test or reading a book. Texas has about 50,000 cemeteries, according to the Texas Historical Commission, though relatively few have been documented and the majority may be just a few, obscure plots. However, a handful, such as Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Other cemeteries, such as Memorial Park along Interstate 40, which 10 million travelers pass by each year, have their historic pages open - in the form of gravestones - to teach people about the customs of earlier times, the ethnic origins of settlers, how they earned a living and, sometimes, how they died. All over the Panhandle, early residents rest in church and community cemeteries waiting to tell their stories to those who stop and pay attention...Amarillo.com