Sherman's Woodmen Circle cemetery designated; project reports two marker approvals

By GvilleTX Newsroom

The Texas Historical Commission's public record lists a Sherman cemetery tied to a Depression-era home for widows and orphans as a Historic Texas Cemetery, with a designation date of Dec. 8, 2025. The volunteer project working on the site says the state has approved two markers for it.

That record places the Supreme Forest Woodmen Circle Cemetery, also carried as Woodmen Circle Home Cemetery, in Sherman, Grayson County. It is not a Cooke County burial ground, though the same program is open to cemeteries here.

The commission counts about 80 graves at the site, with burials running from 1933 to 1985. Its Jan. 30, 2026 quarterly agenda listed the cemetery among sites up for certification as Historic Texas Cemetery designations.

The project's own page reports two approvals: an official Cemetery Medallion and Name Marker for the burial ground, and a separate Texas Historical Marker for "The Woodmen Circle and its Home." Those approval claims are attributed to the project posts.

The cemetery is tied to the former Woodmen's Circle Home. A project post says the home opened in 1930 for widows and orphans and was demolished in 2022. An archival postcard record catalogs the Sherman facility as the Supreme Forest Woodmen Circle Home for Aged Members and Orphan Children, which matches the account that it took in both adults and children. The Library of Congress dates the start of the Great Depression to 1929, so the fraternal order opened its doors as the hard years set in.

Designation and marker are two different things. The commission says a cemetery must hold the Historic Texas Cemetery designation before it can receive a cemetery marker, and that the designation produces no marker by itself. A separate application is required.

Those applications compete. The commission's 2026 work plan held that year's marker workload to no more than 185. At the July 31, 2026 quarterly meeting, staff said the cycle for 2027 markers drew more than 200 applications, of which 168 were approved. Sponsors pay for the plaque as well. The commission's 2025 price sheet sets an application fee, with the marker itself running from several hundred dollars for a cemetery name-and-date plaque with medallion to roughly $2,500 for a large marker set on a post.

The commission says the program in its present form dates to 1962 and has put up more than 16,000 markers, with some in every one of the state's 254 counties.

Cooke County groups with a cemetery or an old building in mind have missed this year's window, which the commission lists as closed. The next regular application period runs March 1 to May 15, 2027. The Undertold marker program takes applications Oct. 1 through Nov. 15, 2026.