If you had taken a close look at the construction site behind the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum earlier this week, you might have thought the elite crime-fighting unit had stumbled upon a crime scene in its own backyard.

Human bones stuck out of dirt piles and lay under trees, just yards from where the local Ranger unit is based.

In reality, the bones are left over from a pauper’s burial ground that had been located at the site. They were unearthed during the construction of a new headquarters for the local Texas Rangers company.

But mystery still surrounds whether the bones have been handled properly. Museum officials say they have followed orders from the Texas Historical Commission. But an official from that agency says he can’t believe it would ever give orders that would result in bones being left out in the open.

That’s how Richard Thompson says he found numerous human bones Tuesday afternoon. Horrified by the situation, the Gholson resident contacted the Tribune-Herald and pointed out the exposed bones to a staff photographer.

“They were totally unprotected,” Thompson said. “It’s nonsense.”

Thompson says he became involved in the situation after talking with a Baylor University professor.

Thompson, who drives a delivery truck, was working his route Tuesday when the professor stopped him and asked if he was the man who had been involved several years ago in the reburial of American Indian bones that the university had once used for research.

When Thompson said he was, the professor told him about bones near the Ranger museum, Thompson said. Disturbed by the thought, he went to the site and quickly discovered numerous bones and fragments above ground, he said.

Thompson and a friend gathered all the bones they could see, performed an American Indian ceremony over them, then put them in a box. Thompson said he plans to turn them over to local law enforcement authorities, but he does not want to give them to the museum because of what he describes as their negligent handling of the situation.

Thompson said he was particularly incensed when one of the construction workers told him two large bones had sat under a tree for more than a month. He also says a worker told him some of the bones had been disposed of in the nearby Brazos River.

Museum director Byron Johnson said the bones have been handled properly. He acknowledges doubts about leaving bones unprotected at the site. But that’s what the historical commission instructed him to do, he said.

City and museum officials have known for years that the land the museum sits on once contained two burial sites, Johnson said. One was an abandoned Masonic cemetery, the other an informal burial ground used for paupers from about 1850 to 1900, he said.

“It was an area where folks just literally brought people out and buried them,” Johnson said of the latter site. “It’s a mix of probably every racial group we had in Waco.”

A mixed legacy

By 1968, when the city was developing a plan for the land, both burial sites were in gross disarray, Johnson said. The informal burial ground — which is the area currently under construction — was buried in several feet of debris, some of which had been dumped there after the 1953 tornado, he said.

Still, the city wanted to make sure the remains were handled properly, Johnson said. So in spring 1968, it went to court to ask for an order allowing it to remove and relocate bones and grave markers from the two sites.

Eventually, city officials got the go-ahead to remove the contents of the burial grounds. They were relocated to several local cemeteries, Johnson said, including the First Street Cemetery, which is adjacent to the property.

The bones again became an issue in 2005 when museum officials prepared for expansion. Prior to construction, the city retained the services of a Lampasas-based archaeologist. He surveyed the site to see if there were any remains left after the 1968 court action. Because of better technology today, officials were fairly certain he would find some, Johnson said.

A survey of the site where the headquarters was to be built turned up nothing, Johnson said. But late this spring, crews came across human remains as they were digging to put in utility lines, Johnson said.

“We’re not talking about full caskets,” Johnson said. “We’re talking about bits and pieces.”

The archaeologist again examined the area and found a number of remains from a sewer line excavation, Johnson said. Those bones were properly removed and stored, he said.

The archaeologist then explored the area where a water line was to be placed to determine the least disruptive route, Johnson said. Before any work was done, however, the historical commission instructed the museum to stop digging in the area pending its review of the site. That was about a month ago, he said.

The museum’s understanding of the agreement, Johnson said, was that officials should collect any bones that had clearly been disturbed, such as those washed out by recent heavy rains. Workers were told to report such findings to museum officials so they could retrieve the bones and document their location, he said.

The other part of the agreement, however, instructed museum officials not to disturb bones found in the ground, Johnson said. So some bones have been left where they were discovered, he said.

Asked about the loose bones pointed out and picked up by Thompson, Johnson said he could not comment on something he did not see. He noted that he and other museum officials scoured the site for exposed bones Wednesday morning after fielding questions from the Tribune-Herald and did not see any.

Johnson also pointed out that Thompson broke state law by taking the bones from the site.

Bones to be examined

All of the remains from the site will be examined by a forensic anthropologist to determine the age and race of the individuals they came from, Johnson said. They will then be re-buried with the assistance of clergy and a justice of the peace. Most likely they will be placed in an unused portion of the nearby First Street Cemetery, he said.

The cost of removing, examining and re-interring the bones will likely be $40,000 to $50,000, Johnson said.

“Our primary intention is not only to treat them reverently but also scientifically,” Johnson said.

Mark Denton, an archeologist with the Texas Historical Commission, said he has no doubt that the agency asked museum officials to stop excavation work until the least disruptive route for the utility lines could be determined. But he said he has a difficult time believing anyone from the commission instructed museum officials to leave bones exposed.

The fact that a citizen could collect a box of bones from the site is a problem, he said.

“Clearly things have gone awry,” he said.

Denton said he plans to do more checking into the situation today. On Wednesday, most commission employees were attending an all-day meeting, he said, so he was not able to speak with commission officials who met with the museum’s staff.

cculp@wacotrib.com

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