Stiff Resistance

One of Fort Worth’s oldest graveyards is bustling with enough noise to wake the dead. West of Bryant Irvin Road and just north of I-20, Burke Cemetery once blended into a dense forest of live oaks and brush. Now a large residential and retail development in the works has stripped the woody environs to make way for a Whole Foods Market and a smorgasbord of other suburban goodies.

Can’t a corpse get a break?

Static has a soft spot for the dead, a growing demographic that includes some pretty cool people. A quick call to one of The Waterfront’s leasing agencies revealed that the plot of more than 100 marked and unmarked graves (some more than 150 years old) won’t be touched.

That’s good news. But now, as Progress in the Fort continues zooming along, bargain hunters and nightflies in their SUVs and Priuses are inching closer and closer to more and more formerly tranquil places of reflection and remembrance, said Jo Pirtle, chair of the Tarrant County Historical Commission.

“The increased development on and near Bryant Irvin does make the [Burke] cemetery more noticeable,” she said.

Tarrant County has cemeteries in shopping centers, industrial areas, at DFW airport, golf courses, and in residential developments, including a hotel parking lot. The burial sites, including Burke, were once located on farms, by churches, or on family land when Tarrant County was mostly rural, she said. The cost to move corpses can be heavenly, around $20,000 per grave, she said, and that’s not counting legal and court fees. Wisely, most businesses find it easier to just live with the dead.

Static recently visited Burke Cemetery. While the resting grounds certainly look lived in, small American flags and flowers near some tombstones make it clear that visitors still pay their respects. A historical marker near the front gate cites the first known burial as that of Mary Burke (née Overton), who with husband Evan H. Burke, their children, and her widowed mother arrived to settle the land in 1851. The half acre of land was deeded as a family burial ground on March 12, 1900, and includes members of the Edwards, Magers, and Overton families. May they rest in peace. And quiet.