West
Bridgeport
Cemetery |
Click
Here to go back to the Wise County TXGenWeb Home Page
(Click
Here to go to Listing & Pictures of All Wise County
Headstones)
Click 'Grave Location' button
for layout order listing
and 'Headstones' button for information and headstone pictures
West Bridgeport, Old Town Cemetery, Bridgeport-West, or West Side Cemetery is located to the West of Bridgeport. Go out Hwy 920 past the Acme Brick Plant about 2 miles. Turn left onto CR 3410 at 'Cemetery sign'. It's at the end of CR 3410 right next to the Bridgeport Riding Club Arena.
The town of
Bridgeport was first founded just west of this cemetery (see old map of town
below). This map shows Old Town 1880 to 1887. It is
information from Mr. Tran Ray, Mr. Walter Bingham, Mr. Pollard Jeter, compiled
by Mrs. J.V. Montrief and drawn by Owen Funk.
There is an historical marker on the other side of Hwy 920 close to the
new bridge that crosses the West Fork of the Trinity River. The text of
the Historical Marker for Old Town Bridgeport follows:
Toll Bridge And Old Bridgeport When Butterfield overland mail
traversed this area (1858-61) on St. Louis to San Francisco route, a crossing over West
Fork of the Trinity was a necessity. Col. W.H. Hunt on Feb 11, 1860, obtained a charter
and built a toll bridge here (50 yds. w). The overland mail ceased operating as Civil War
began. The bridge soon collapsed. However, a settlement had begun here, and in 1873
Charles Cates, a Decatur merchant, spanned the river with an iron bridge. |
Headstone pictures were originally taken at this cemetery in 1999 and some updates were taken in 2002. At that time there were 1400 headstones. In 2014 all new pictures were taken of the newer sections on the north side of the cemetery (sections 1 and 4). New pictures were also done in the other sections for all of the headstones with dates of 2000 or newer. There are now 1,715 pictures of 1,525 headstones. There is data for another 43 burials where no headstone has been found. This information came from a cemetery listing done by Mr. & Mrs. Homer L. Roper in Dec of 1960.
Click on the buttons below to go
to a map of the cemetery with 'Layout Order'
or
the 'Headstone Information' with links to all of
the headstone pictures for this cemetery.