Collinsworth Cemetery in Plano, Texas

About

Get directions 3108 Vermillion Dr
Plano, Texas, USA

Coordinates: 33.03984, -96.78732
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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For many years this cemetery was overgrown and neglected. With the recent addition of a new subdivision, this cemetery has been very nicely cleaned up and new black wrought iron fencing has been added. A story board produced by The Plano Conservancy for Historic Preservation is next to the gate.

This cemetery was started behind Milt Collinsworth's home in 1895 during a smallpox epidemic. This site was used until late 1925 and is said to have as many as 30 Collinsworth family members interned here. Today only 6 stones remain. Some of the tomb stones have disappeared and may be under the soil that covers the original cemetery.

In May 1895 a traveling salesman was welcomed into the Collinsworth home for the night. The next morning as the man was leaving, he mentioned feeling sick. A Collinsworth daughter who had helped to change the bed linens where the man slept became sick and was diagnosed with smallpox. Though this diagnosis came early, the doctor was unfamiliar with proper measures of treatment. The disease spread quickly through the family resulting in four deaths within thirty days. Many extended family members came together in the Collinsworth home for the funerals and the illness was further spread. Eventually more than ten relatives succumbed to the illness.
Plano officials quarantined the area extending to the north and south by present-day Spring Creek Parkway and Park Blvd and to the east and west by what is now Coit and Preston Road to avoid a citywide epidemic. The city also passed a resolution to vaccinate everyone and prohibited passage on all through roads. Only a very few came to the aid of the Collinsworth family during this time.