COLUMBUS - The 20th Annual Live Oaks and Dead Folks Cemetery Tour will take place at the Odd Fellows Rest Cemetery at 1518 Montezuma St. in Columbus on Saturday, Nov. 4 beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Tickets are available online at www.nmlfoundation.org/liveoaks- and-dead-folks-cemeterytour or in person at the Nesbitt Memorial Library and cost $20 for adults and $10 for students; children under six are free.
Because the number of tickets is limited, advance purchase is required. Click on the link or stop by Nesbitt Memorial Li brary in person to purchase your tickets.
Guided tours commence at 5:30 p.m. and take the group along winding stops at various grave sites to hear first-hand from the “dearly-departed” themselves!
These costumed and animated performers will tell you about their remarkable lives and history of Old Columbus.
Attendees are encouraged to arrive by 5:15 p.m. to gather with the tour guides. Attendees are also encouraged to bring a flash light.
In a celebratory spirit of Columbus’s 200th birthday, the tour will feature 13 new characters, some of whom had a connection to the town’s 100th birthday: William F. Archer Louise Sommers Hastings Buescher
Dr. William W. Gunn August Ilse Charles Kearney
Berthold Leysaht Dr. Josiah H. Payne Jr.
Sarah Elizabeth Zouks Stafford Gus Steger Jr. Howard Asa Townsend Lura Perry Traylor
Malzena Ann Gregory Zumwalt
Ida Dietrich Zwiener
The cemetery tour was the brainchild of the late Bill Stein, library director/archivist of the Nesbitt Memorial Library from 1997-2008, and the late geneal logist Dorothy Albrecht. In 2004, it was one of the first cemetery tours in Central Texas and has been successful since its inception.
Interpreting the lives of Columbus, Texas predecessors in an entertaining environment, it has become known as a premier public history event in Colorado County.
A group of over 30 volunteers make this event possible.
The Nesbitt Memorial Li brary is primarily supported by the City of Columbus, and from private foundations including the Nesbitt Memorial Library Foun dation Inc.
The annual Live Oaks and Dead Folks Cemetery Tour event is sponsored by the Nesbitt Me- morial Library Foundation Inc.
and proceeds from ticket sales go to the foundation in support of the library.
Trustees are Jim Kearney, Tracey Wegenhoft, Kenneth Wegenhoft, Roger Wade and Ester Chandler.
Books written by local authors about the Stafford-Townsend Feud and the history of Columbus will be available to purchase at the event by cash or check.
Everyone come on out to support the library and learn about Colorado County history from the very “haints” that made it!
Come see and experience the lives of those who lived before us and what impact they had on the future of Columbus while being steeped in history.
The Live Oaks and Dead Folks Cemetery tour is a dead-ringer and one you won’t forget.
