Sorghum Flat Cemetery

Murray County, Oklahoma

© Dennis Muncrief

Take SH 7 one mile east out of Davis until you come to SH 110. Turn south, toward Dougherty, for 3 1/2 miles until you come to the Rayford Cutoff. Turn right and go for 1 mile until you come to the Southern Cross Ranch headquarters. The office is on the west side of the road. Permission MUST be asked at the office to enter the ranch property.

After you get permission, travel on west past the ranch office down a ranch road about 1/2 mile. You will come to two tunnels going under the Santa Fe railroad. Take the left tunnel as you are now in a creek bottom and the turning radius is extremely tight. In the creek bottom on the other side of the tunnels, you will see two ranch roads with cattle guards and gates. Take the left gate and travel down the ranch road south for 1/2 mile. The cemetery, which measures 1 1/2 acres, is in a fenced area with many trees, on the left, on a little hill, next to the road.

I wish to caution all. The cemetery is between the Santa Fe tracks and the Washita River. This country is very mountainous and if there is a sudden heavy rain you will be trapped by a flash flood in the area as the tunnels flood and there is no other way back out to the road.

The area was settled in the late 1860's just after the Civil War. The community of Sorghum Flats was the first such in Murray County and was settled by William Nathan Price, who is also buried in the cemetery. The name of the town was derived from the large amount of sorghum cane grown in the area in the Washita River bottom. Nathan Price built the sorghum mill along with a cotton gin and a sawmill. Nearby Price's Falls is also named for Nathan Price. A post office was opened across the Washita River about a mile west called Price.

Old maps records show this cemetery as Price Cemetery. I have never heard it called anything but Sorghum Flat cemetery. The cemetery is thought to be the oldest in the Arbuckle Mountain area. The earliest dated grave marker is 1876.

One will readily notice the very large proportion of children and women of childbearing age in the cemetery. A post office by the name of Price was established here on Aug 20, 1884 making it the oldest post office in Murray County. There are 24 native stone grave markers that have no identifying marks or are unknown burials.

Times were very hard in this area in the 1870's to the early 1900's. The average age of those interred in Sorghum Flats cemetery is only 18 years old. If you delete just four people who lived beyond 60 years, the average drops to 15 years old!

When the Santa Fe Railroad came through in 1887, a depot was built at the future site of Dougherty 2 miles south. No depot was built at Price and it just dried up and blew away as people began moving out of Sorghum Flats and moved to Dougherty. This probably had a bearing on why the cemetery was abandoned.

I visited this cemetery more than once in the past weeks, cleaning out brush and overgrowth, trying to restore it as best I could. Then I read the cemetery again, discovering additional names, after finding markers which were hidden the first time I read it. Completed on Nov 12, 2003

If you have family buried in the Sorghum Flat Cemetery or can take a gate photo or have obits (with newspapers permission or an obit that you can write) or tombstone photos or individual portraits or can write a short bio and would like to add your information to this website, contact the area coordinator for more information. You can also check out our How to Submit page.

NOTICE. If you submit information to this website and change your e-mail address please notify the area coordinator with the county/cemetery and new e-mail address so we can keep our pages as up to date as possible.

NOTE Every effort has been made to transcribe this information accurately. These records MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. Any corrections and/or additions greatly appreciated. As with any genealogy information, this is a source and should be considered as such. It is up to the researcher to verify the accuracy.