Ebony Grove Cemetery

This cemetery, named for the land's clusters of ebony trees, began in 1922. The American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company developed Mercedes and about 200 square miles of adjacent farmlands, also deeding nearly nine acres to the Mercedes Cemetery Association, which still cares for the burial ground. Among the earliest marked graves are those of siblings Maude Evans (d. 1876) and Eugene E. Evans, Jr. (d. 1881), whose remains were reinterred from another cemetery. Ebony Grove Cemetery is shaped like a shield, bounded by the Arroyo Colorado on three sides with an ordered plot layout. Notable landscape features include stone slab covers and fraternal organization gravestones. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2006