1st Vice-President

Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project

On the near east side of Conroe, Texas, there is a small cemetery that until nine years ago, was nearly lost to human memory, but it has not been forgotten by nature. It had no official name and was remembered by only the oldest of those who live in its neighborhood.

In 1978 a survey of the cemetery documented 38 known burials that had stone markers. In the years that followed many of these headstones in the abandoned and overgrown cemetery were damaged or toppled over and lost. 

In 2011 when Jon Edens was transcribing graves in the adjacent Oakwood Cemetery, he looked over the fence and saw the grave of Dora Armstrong in this overgrown cemetery. This find was the precursor of Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project (CCCRP), a 501(c)(3) organization.

The first major obstacle before restoration could begin was that the cemetery was on land privately owned by the heirs of Henry J. Runge. In 2019 the heirs gave written permission to restore and preserve the cemetery.

Later that year, the cleanup began aided by volunteers that included the Boy Scouts, church groups, and neighborhood workers. Businesses donated portable restrooms and debris removal services. In 2020, the City of Conroe Public Works improved the entrance to the cemetery and the drainage.

This historic cemetery has documented graves dating back to the 1890s and includes emancipated slaves, railroad workers, sawmill workers, three significant earlier educators in the African American community, and Luther Dorsey, the only confirmed Buffalo Soldier buried in Montgomery County.

New burial markers are discovered on a regular basis and unmarked burial sites have been discovered by the use of cadaver dogs. Genealogists in the group are searching for records of those who were buried there but did not have grave markers.

The Project has had excellent support from local and Houston area newspapers and news stations. It has a presence on the web and Facebook for everyone to follow the current clean-up efforts.

The Montgomery County Historical Commission gave the CCCRP grants to survey and fence the property. Arcs and Sparks, Inc. donated an entry sign. This was the first sign for the cemetery in its documented 128-year history. A large public dedication ceremony was held, featuring speakers from the Montgomery County Historical Commission, the NAACP, and local black churches, and an honor guard of Buffalo Soldiers from Houston, Texas.

The CCCRP is dedicated to seeing this forgotten piece of history restored and preserved so those who are interred there may once again be honored and future generations can learn this lost history of Conroe Texas.