THE TEXICAN
We know where the famous bodies are buried.
Of all the interesting things to do in Houston, a tour of the Bayou City’s cemeteries is something that we can’t recommend enough — and not just because it’s Halloween season.
A handful of cemeteries in the Houston-area, including Glenwood Cemetery and Forest Park Cemetery, are the final resting places of some of the people that helped shape the city.
At Glenwood, just outside of downtown, you can visit the Hughes family plot, where Howard Hughes rests with the others in his clan. Also at Glenwood, you will find the graves of Astrodome mastermind Judge Roy Hofheinz, Dr. Denton Cooley, actress Gene Tierney and oilman Glenn McCarthy, who built the Shamrock Hotel and inspired James Dean’s character in “Giant.”
Elsewhere in Glenwood you will find the resting plots of the Hobbys, William and Oveta, plus Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas. He’s been buried there since 1858, one of the first major interments.
You will also see surnames on headstones like Shepherd, Bagby, Binz, Elgin and Gray, all of who have busy nearby streets named after them. Their legacies shine on every time we are stuck
GENE TIERNEY RESTS FOREVER AT GLENWOOD CEMETERY
in Houston traffic.
Forest Park Cemetery, in southeast Houston, eternally hosts a who’s who of Houston history, like Jesse H. Jones, Lloyd Bentsen, Houston Chronicle founder Marcellus E. Foster and Mama Ninfa Laurenzo.
Influential Houston bluesman Samuel John “Lightnin’ ” Hopkins also is buried with the rest of those swells, interred in Section 23 in January 1982. He has a simple stone with an acoustic guitar carved into it.
We looked for where Houston’s Dr. James “Red” Duke is buried only to find that he’s at Austin’s Texas State Cemetery, where Stephen F. Austin, Barbara Jordan and Chris Kyle were laid to rest.
Sam Houston is at Huntsville’s Oakwood Cemetery, if you feel like going by to say hello to our city’s namesake on the way to Dallas.
Other major cemeteries in Houston, like Founders’ Memorial Park and Hollywood Cemetery, are both worth spending an afternoon exploring. You will likely find names that adorn some of Houston’s most popular streets and institutions.
And over at Hollywood Cemetery, you will find the final resting places of Lawrence Shipley Sr. and his wife, Lillie Shipley, a couple that helped changed the way we all eat doughnuts in Houston.