Saturday, September 06, 2008
By J.B. Smith
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A Texas state legislative committee has ordered an inquiry into the handling of graves that were discovered and exhumed for the expansion of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.
The House Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism has appointed a special subcommittee that will hold hearings on the case before the Legislature convenes in January.
The subcommittee will try to determine whether state and federal laws are being followed as the expansion work continues and whether current policies to protect graves need to be strengthened, said the subcommittee’s chairwoman, Donna Howard, D-Austin.
Richard Thompson takes bones from museum expansion site / July 19, 2007
American Archaeology Group photos of grave excavations / March 2008
- 10-29-08 Cemetery 'debacle' at Ranger Museum site will bring about new legislation, lawmaker says
- 10-08-08 City of Waco countersues archaeological firm in Texas Ranger Museum project
- 09-23-08 State legislator tours burial site at Texas Ranger Museum expansion
- 09-08-08 Political charges fly over graveyard dig at Ranger Museum
- 09-06-08 State calls inquiry on graves at Ranger museum site
- 09-05-08 State funeral hearing's focus shifts to graves at Texas Ranger Museum expansion
- 09-04-08 State agency hearing in Waco today on families' access to graves
- 05-07-08 City OKs spending up to $350,000 to dig beneath graves for water line to museum
- 05-06-08 Letting First Street Cemetery dead rest in peace will come at a cost, city leaders say
- 04-27-08 Descendants of First Street Cemetery dead plea for peace at long last
- 04-02-08 Museum grounds may be re-dedicated as old cemetery
- 03-23-08 DEAD WRONG: Bad assumptions, ignorance played havoc with old city cemetery
- 03-08-08 Firm says city mismanaged burial site at Ranger museum
- 11-13-07 Grave concerns bedevil Texas Ranger Hall of Fame project
- 08-06-07 Texas Ranger Museum gets OK to resume construction at site where bones were unearthed
- 07-24-07 State officials scrutinizing loose human bones, ambitious museum plans
- 07-20-07 Missing bones cause big beef for city, museum officials
- 07-19-07 A bone to pick: Case of exposed skeletal remains 'gone awry'
The Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee, headed by Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, oversees the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Historical Commission, two state agencies that have been involved in the Ranger museum case.
The city of Waco in 2007 discovered skeletons along the path of a utility line trench it was building to serve the new annex to the Ranger Museum. The city hired an archaeologist to study and exhume the bones, under the guidance of the Texas Historical Commission.
The Texas Ranger Museum grounds, known as Fort Fisher Park, lie atop a historic cemetery known as First Street Cemetery. A state judge in 1968 granted permission for the city to relocate graves to another part of the cemetery to accommodate the new museum. But evidence has emerged that most of the bodies were not moved when the headstones were relocated.
jbsmith@wacotrib.com
757-5752
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