Glenwood & Olivewood: Houston's Historic Cemeteries

A cemetery tour is really a history tour with better views. This respectful drive links two of Houston's most important historic burial grounds — Glenwood, the city's first landscaped garden cemetery and the resting place of governors, mayors, and Howard Hughes; and Olivewood, Houston's first incorporated African American cemetery, founded in 1875 by formerly enslaved people and their descendants and now the subject of a devoted preservation effort. The two grounds tell very different stories about who Houston remembered and how. We'll lead with the real people and the real history, treat both places — Olivewood especially — with the reverence they deserve, and, where it exists, note the ghost lore lightly and clearly as legend. This is not a fright tour. Please stay on drives and paths, keep to visiting hours, disturb nothing, and treat every name you pass as a person who lived.