Robinson Family Cemetery on the former Mt. Airy in West Dallas.
A hidden burial ground in West Dallas will receive a marker from the Dallas County Historical Commission.
The earliest grave at the Robinson Family Cemetery is thought to be from January 1879, and the latest are from before 1910.
Benjamin Franklin Robinson, a former politician and Indian agent from Missouri, settled on what was then called Mt. Airy, now known as the hill behind the Belmont Hotel, sometime after the Civil War. The Robinson family was influential in founding the Western Heights Church of Christ, which is a few hundred feet away and was later associated with Western Heights Cemetery.
The Robinson family burial plot sits on about 600 square feet of land between a one-lane gravel alley and the back property line of 1019 Mobile Street, where new luxury homes are being built to take advantage of the view and excellent location.
Here’s how the front of the lot looked before, from Google Maps.
Those houses were demolished, and two-and-three story town homes have gone up all along the block except for the two end lots. Check out these drone photos on Zillow.
Here’s a view of the back, from a couple of days ago.
About 10 people are buried there, including Robinson, his wife, three of their children, a daughter in law and three of their grandchildren who died as infants.
Robbie Robinson of Mesquite sponsored the marker. He states in the application that he’s known since young adulthood that the cemetery was associated with his family, and he and his wife started to care for it about 10 years ago.
“To say it was in disastrous shape when we first started working on it would be an understatement,” he says.
The historical commission also awarded several markers related to Black history in Dallas.
