So Friday night we drove over from West Texas into the Killeen/Ft Hood area to look at some houses to rent. That is how we spent yesterday. Today we made the drive back to Monahans, stopping a few times along the way to grab some Geocaches.
Our first cache was a quick one right at the hotel and then another in the Walmart parking lot. Then we drove over along side the airport to find the Brown (Okay Community) Cemetery cache (GC4QKZ8).
Elisha Ivy, for whom Ivy Mountain Road was named, established a home and store in this vicinity in the 1860s. In the 1870s, a community known as Liberty Hill developed northwest of his property. In 1896, when the rural settlement applied for a post office, its name was changed to Okay. Area residents supported churches, a school and businesses, and Samuel Marion and Mary Elizabeth (Evans) Brown set aside land for a community burial ground, formally deeding it in 1907.
As military installations in the area grew, the community of Okay was displaced and ceased to exist in the early 1940s. In 1953, the U.S. Government decided to extend the runway at Gray Air Force Base, where the Brown (Okay Community) Cemetery was located, approximately 1,600 feet southwest of this site. The Army Corps of Engineers moved 70 graves, 30 of which were for unidentified individuals, to this location and aligned the burials similarly to original positions. The earliest marked grave dates to 1882 and is that of infant David Davis. Today, the cemetery is a reminder of the Okay community and the families who lived there, added to the long list of ghost towns.

Next to the cemetery is a community park that has a train trestle railroad track passing over the entrance that made for a nice photo. I just wish I could have removed those signs first and then taken the picture.

Not as big a geocaching adventure as usual, but this wasn't a caching trip. More of taking care of some business with some caching tossed in to break up the long drive. Thanks for stopping by to read our blog. See you out at the next cache...
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