Western Heights Cemetery

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!!
Fort Worth Avenue Development Group (which sounds like a business but is a neighborhood organization) has now taken over management of the cemetery and made a big difference. It is now being maintained and is looking good.

Thanks to The Constellation of Living Memorials a $3,750 matching grant has been awarded from the Texas Historical Foundation to create pollinator habitat etc. With the match it'll be a total of $7,500. Also due to the efforts of The Constellation of Living Memorials a $30,000 grant (!!) has been awarded from the Summerlee Foundation to have all the headstones cleaned, the leaning ones straightened, the broken ones repaired, etc.

If you just come to stare at the Clyde Barrow marker you're missing the best part of the cemetery. There are some really cool stones there. Clyde's is very blah. His STORY is interesting, his marker is very plain. There's so much more to see than just Clyde Barrow's grave. Civil War soldier's gaves both Union and Confederate, La Reunion colonists, people from Germany (7), France, Switzerland, Hungary, England, and "Sanwan" (!) California. Three headstones are written in German. The guy that laid the 12,000 lb. cornerstone during the building the State Capitol in Austin on the 49th birthday of Texas Independence, markers dating back to 1861 and graves dating back to 1848 etc.

Also it's puzzling all the people on some sites saying the cemetery is locked or they jumped the fence. The VEHICLE entrance is chained shut of course. But at the corner of Fort Worth Avenue and Neal St. is the PEDESTRIAN entrance which doesn't even have a gate, you just walk up 4 steps.

Closed dusk to dawn.

I was first taken here in High School by a friend. I couldn't believe it. All these years later and I've been back a few times. This time there were several groups of 20 something's there.

I guess it's more popular than ever. The Cemetary is in a part of Dallas that saw a steady decline for decades but is going through a Gentification now.

The graveyard itself is, unfortunately,unkempt.
The main attraction here? The final resting place of the natorious Clyde Barrow of the duo outlaw couple Bonnie and Clyde.

Worth a look if you're in the area.

Incredibly ghetto neighborhood. You would think for being a Texas landmark, the state would at least make an attempt to keep it kept up. Instead, it's left abandoned and severely overgrown.

Old cemetery...we went to see Clyde Barrow's grave. I was little saddened that it didn't have any decor or trinkets on his grave like Bonnie Parker's does. We walked around the quiet graveyard and tried to read some of the oldest stones there. Some were hand etched and barely readable anymore, which is also very sad for them. It is interesting to see the different stones and how one little saying or just a name is supposed to sum up a person. Makes you think of how you would want yours to say or if you even want to rest in a graveyard at all. The grass was roughly cut but we didn't have a tough time walking and looking.

The cemetery is locked, but there is a gap between the gate. As soon as you get in the gate, turn left and walk straight and you can see Clyde's grave site.

The neighborhood is kind sketchy, so daytime visit is probably better

FYI - if you want to see Bonnie's grave, it is at Crown Hill Memorial Park.

5 fun facts about the duo:

1) 20,000 people attended Bonnie's funeral, flowers were send from everywhere, the largest floral tribute was sent by a group of Dallas city newsboys; the death of Bonnie and Clyde sold 500,000 newspapers in Dallas alone

2) Bonnie was a married woman, just not to Clyde. She got married to Roy Thornton when she was 16, who was a thief and cheat, Bonnie Parker died with her wedding ring still on her finger. Divorce was not really an option for a known fugitive. Roy was serving a 5 year sentence when Bonnie died

3) Officially, Bonnie was shot 26 times and Clyde was shot 17 times, unofficially, that number was much higher. Bonnie was still holding onto a half eaten sandwich when she was shot

4) One of the undertaker assisted in the funeral, Dillard Darby, was kidnapped by Bonnie and Clyde a year earlier after his car had been stolen by them. At the time, Bonnie thought it was hilarious that they kidnapped an undertaker, she asked Dillard to take care of the gang's mortuary needs in the future, give him 5 dollars and released him.

5) Although both Bonnie and Clyde are chain smokers (Camels is their preferred brand), but she doesn't smoke cigars, the image of her smoking a cigar is just pose. She does drink whiskey and get drunk, Clyde, on the other hand, doesn't drink because he needs to be alert in case they need to make a fast getaway.

Grave site of Clyde Burrows, if the infamous Bonnie and Clyde, is here. It's in the southwest corner of the cemetery near Fort Worth Ave, near where Fort Worth Ave and Navarro intersect. Between the two crape myrtles, a flat, dark headstone for him and his brother, Marvin. There were flowers, many fresh, left at the grave site.