The town of Lueders lies along the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, on land given by the state of Texas to heirs of Frederick Luders, a German immigrant who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto. Early area settlers included U.S. Indian agent Jess Stem, who homesteaded a few miles south of here in 1852. Ranching was the dominant activity in the latter 19th century.
In 1900, the Webb and Hill Land and Cattle Company bought the Goethe & Fuchs Ranch on the Clear Fork and developed the town of Lueders. In the same year, limestone rock quarries opened and the Texas Central Railroad extended their tracks here from Albany. The new community soon had a school, post office, cotton gins and businesses. A graveyard in a pasture near Rhomberg Street served Lueders citizens from about 1902-06. Hand digging graves at that site became impractical because of thick layers of limestone.
In 1907, John M. Roberts, Clark Henry King and Mrs. E.V. Risley donated land for a new Lueders cemetery, also later known as Clear Fork Cemetery. The site abutted the railroad tracks of the Texas Central (later the MKT). For many years, pallbearers carried caskets up the railroad embankment and down the other side to the burial plots. An open-sided tabernacle on the north side of the cemetery was used for memorial services in the early years. The earliest burial is the unnamed infant daughter of George and Cate Risley. Hundreds of pioneer settlers, area residents and veterans of conflicts dating from the Civil War are buried here. Cemetery features include granite, marble, concrete, and wooden gravestones, with Lueders limestone grave markers also prominent. Lueders Cemetery remains a chronicle of past and an important part of the community.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2010
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