A 157-acre cemetery founded in 1878 holding three Texas governors, the gun-dueling journalist W.C. Brann, and the Confederate graves that medical professors allegedly robbed for dissection.
2124 S 3rd St, Waco, TX 76706
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cemetery is free and open to the public during daylight hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
157-acre cemetery with paved interior roads. Some older sections have uneven ground. Vehicle access available.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1878 · Three Texas Governors (Coke, Ross, Neff) · W.C. Brann — journalist and Iconoclast editor · Confederate General Thomas Green · Charles Alderton — Dr Pepper inventor · Documented 19th-century grave robbing by medical school faculty
Oakwood Cemetery opened in 1878 on the site of an abandoned horse racing track south of downtown Waco, intended to resolve crowding at the older First Street Cemetery. At 157 acres, it is one of the largest municipal cemeteries in Central Texas. Since 1898 the Oakwood Cemetery Association — a private organization whose bylaws mandate an all-women board of directors — has managed the grounds on behalf of the city.
The cemetery holds three Texas governors: Richard Coke (1829–1897), who served as both governor and U.S. Senator; Lawrence Sullivan Ross (1838–1898), governor and president of Texas A&M University; and Patrick Morris Neff (1871–1952), governor and Baylor University president. Confederate General Thomas Green and Charles Alderton, documented as the inventor of Dr Pepper, are also interred here.
The journalist William Cowper Brann (1855–1898) — founder and editor of the Iconoclast, a journal of social protest that reached 100,000 in circulation — was shot in the back by Tom E. Davis, a Baylor University supporter, on a Waco street on April 1, 1898. Brann drew his own pistol and shot Davis before dying; both men died from their wounds the same day. Brann's monument at Oakwood features an engraved profile with a visible bullet hole — a deliberate reference to the manner of his death. His grave has been a Waco landmark since his burial.
During the nineteenth century, Waco's medical school faculty were documented as having exhumed bodies from the cemetery's older, less-maintained sections for use in anatomical dissection classes, a practice that was common across the American South before legal cadaver procurement existed. The disturbed graves are concentrated in areas of unmarked and indigent burials.
Sources
Waco ghost lore places William Cowper Brann as the cemetery's most recognizable spirit. His monument — bearing an engraved profile with a bullet hole — became a pilgrimage point almost immediately after his April 1, 1898 burial, and tour guides have long maintained that his presence can be felt near the oaks surrounding his grave. KWTX reported in 2023 that Cindy Little includes Brann's grave on Waco ghost walks, describing a spectral presence lingering near those particular trees.
The grave-robbing history adds a separate layer to the cemetery's paranormal reputation. Waco-area medical professors documented in the historical record as having exhumed bodies from unmarked and indigent sections of the cemetery during the 19th century, when legal mechanisms for obtaining cadavers for anatomical instruction were limited or nonexistent. Tour accounts suggest that the disturbed graves in those sections carry the restlessness of the exhumed, though no specific names or detailed incidents have been documented in available sources.
The cemetery's sheer size — 157 acres, with sections dating to 1878 — creates the conditions that make for sustained paranormal interest: historical depth, prominent named burials, documented desecration, and the atmospheric density of mature oak canopy over graves spanning more than a century.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk the 157 acres and locate the graves of three Texas governors, Confederate General Thomas Green, and journalist W.C. Brann, whose monument bears an engraved bullet hole in profile — a reference to how he died. Maps of notable graves are available through the Waco History Project.
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