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SAN SABA, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – San Saba’s football stadium is full of history and not just because of the memories made via the Friday night lights, but because the stadium once served as the town’s cemetery.

Since 1856, this lot of land has belong to the Rogan family. This football field was once a graveyard for civil war soldiers and early settlers up until 1878, when commissioners court stopped all new burials. In 1935, SSISD was donated this land from the Rogan family. In that same year, the city set to remove all bodies, monuments, tombs, grave markers, shrubs and trees.

But according to Ronnie Shulze, San Saba HS Football coach, some of these bodies were not removed due to not having family members to claim. Most of these people now rest in city cemetery. Shulze learned this from a past friend named James.

“He said that he remembers the bulldozers coming in to clear the land, and a few of the bodies remains didn’t get claimed so they just bulldozed the tombstones in and left them there… there wasn’t many,” Shulze recalled.

Before the land was cleared, the city had reached out to the families of 18-25 gravestones and asked for them to relocate the bodies. Not everyone claimed these markers and it is unknown how many remain today.

Jake Lackey, San Saba resident, said the school use to use the fairgrounds as a stadium before the school got the land. There was controversy on whether the graveyard should be used as a stadium in 1935, but the Rogan family wrote a letter telling the community that since citizens did not keep the area cleaned up, they should allow SSISD to have the land and look after it.

“Well, you can’t help it, kinda have that feeling, especially if your on the graveyard and on Halloween or Friday the 13th… Knowing that there’s actually remains of San Saba City citizens under us, were the only ones that can say we built our football stadium on a legitimate graveyard,” said Lackey.

Today, many citizens have called the stadium ‘The Graveyard’ and have hung up signs. Many stories have spread about this unique place, although it is hard to tell which ones are facts and which ones are myths.

SAN SABA, Texas – High school football players in one Texas town have been scoring touchdowns on top of an old graveyard for nearly 90 years.

Texas Football Life, a culture-based Twitter account, shared the fascinating fact on Thursday stating that Rogan Field in San Saba was built on top of a cemetery.

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KSAT reached out to the district and librarian Deanne Cromer shared some old newspaper clippings that provide more inside into the field’s history.

The land was first donated by Dr. J.C. Rogan in 1858 for San Saba’s first cemetery. By 1878 the county’s commissioner’s court prohibited further use of the cemetery, according to a clipping from the Standard-Times provided by Cromer.

By 1910, Rogan’s descendants regained control of the land after a local church failed to maintain the cemetery.

Around 1934-35, family members who had loved ones in Rogan’s cemetery were urged to exhume the bodies and bury them elsewhere, however, some families either couldn’t afford it or had already moved away.

“As a result, not all the graves were removed,” the Standard-Times clipping states.

Rogan Field was built on top of the site in 1935 for the San Saba High School football team and became widely referred to as the graveyard.

San Saba coaches in the early 90s started using the history of the land to their advantage.

“Sometimes a player from the other team will break into the open field, but he’ll trip and fall for no apparent reason. We’ll just laugh about it,” San Saba assistant football coach Ronnie Schulze told the paper. “Sometimes we’ll beat a team at home that we shouldn’t beat. We’ll just look at each other and grin about it.”

“At times when we played there, a player would trip in the open field and we always knew it was bc of a skeleton reaching up and grabbing us,” one Twitter user commented.

According to the Express-News, fans who entered the stadium used to be greeted with a sign that read “Welcome to the Graveyard” when they arrived at the stadium.

The sign was removed after some people complained that it was disrespectful and it has since been lost.

A replica sign is now displayed on game days.

In August, a former San Saba student and football alum Jake Lackey told KWTX that the gridiron will likely always be grass as opposed to the typical turf fields many fields use today.

“You’ve got to have a drainage system for turf and you’ve got to dig down five, six, seven foot — well you start digging down five, six, seven foot you’re going to start hitting graves,” Lackey said.

San Saba is located about a two-hour drive northwest of downtown Austin.

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Although our next cold front, arriving Wednesday, could drop a bit of rain, the weather it leaves in it’s wake will cause the wildland and grass fire danger to increase in parts of Central Texas Wednesday.

A fire weather watch is in place for Hamilton, Bosque, Mills, San Saba, and Lampasas Counties from 12 PM Wednesday through 8 PM. The fire weather watch will likely be upgraded to a red flag warning tomorrow, meaning that critical fire danger conditions are in place.

It’s HIGHLY discouraged for anyone to do outdoor burning Wednesday midday and afternoon despite a lack of burn bans in place. The only county with a burn ban in our area is San Saba County.

All wildfire ingredients will be in place

Whenever we talk about wildland fires and grass fires, we’re really talking about a combination of a few different ingredients coming together (much like with severe storms, winter storms, etc.). Wildfires need warm temperatures, dry ground, low humidity, and strong winds to grow and thrive and all four of those requirements will be around behind Wednesday’s front.

Wednesday’s cold front likely kicks up scattered showers and even a few storms after 3 AM, but the approaching front will clear skies and end the rain west of I-35 by 9 AM and potentially even earlier.

Wednesday’s front has it’s origins in the Pacific Ocean, as opposed to in Canada, so the airmass immediately following the front is more desert-like than “tundra-like”. The front’s strong westerly winds, gusting between 20 and 30 MPH, acts to pull dry air from West Texas in. Dry air heats and cools more quickly than humid air, so the return of morning sunshine and west winds means temperatures should quickly rebound from the 50s and low 60s into at least the mid-70s by the afternoon.

The dry air from West Texas will also cause relative humidity values to tank. We’ll start out the morning ahead of the front with relative humidity values greater than 90%, but the extremely dry air in combination with the warming temperatures will send afternoon relative humidity values to near 10%. A relative humidity of around 10% with high temperatures in the mid-70s roughly translates to a dew point in the teens.

The wildfire ingredient we all know about is the overall lack of precipitation Central Texas has been seeing for over a year now. Cities and towns near and east of I-35 have been faring a bit better in the rainfall department, but cities and towns west of I-35 and especially west of Highway 281 have been rain-starved. The latest drought monitor, updated January 12th, shows all locations under the Fire Weather Watch with between moderate drought to extreme drought conditions. Even if morning rain falls, the exceptionally dry air and rainfall totals below a tenth-inch will not make much of any impact on the dry ground.

Northerly winds and cooler temperatures arriving Wednesday night will bring the fire weather danger to a close for the foreseeable future. We’ll need a lot more rain over the coming months otherwise we’ll be talking about an elevated fire danger risk with some frequency as we head into spring and eventually summer.

Copyright 2023 KWTX. All rights reserved.

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SAN SABA COUNTY, Texas — Firefighters in San Saba County responded to a fire that started across from a pecan plant on state Highway 190 on Thursday afternoon.

According to San Saba Emergency Management Coordinator Marsha Hardy, the fire started when plastic and petroleum in storage ignited due to the heat.

Killeen Hazmat responded and is currently monitoring the situation.

Hardy confirmed one firefighter was treated by EMS on-scene but was not transported.

The fire is out, but crews remain to ensure flames don't start up again.

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San Saba Garden Club (SSGC) held its first meeting of 2023 in Mill Pond Clubhouse on January 3rd. Members gathered to celebrate the organization’s 87th birthday in surroundings of pastel balloon bouquets and linen-draped tables with floral arrangements in crystal vases. Hostesses Jan Beaver (chair), Susan Kissko, and Sarah Lott treated attendees to a smorgasbord laden with warm hors d’oeuvres, a classic charcuterie board, crackers with gourmet dips and spreads, assorted tidbits, fresh fruit, and assorted cupcakes topped with towering swirls of buttercream icing. The beverage bar included coffee, iced tea, and flavored water.

January’s program was a staged reenactment of the club’s most memorable historical moment: the day in 1955 when two Garden Club members, Katylee May and Sally Arhelger, stood between a wrecking ball and the old gristmill in Millpond Park while Alma Ward Hamrick, Lady Wynn Felts, and Sally Hayden negotiated with the town mayor, Wilson Shook, to stop the demolition and allow their organization to turn the ransacked building into a permanent clubhouse. The consequence was a 99-year lease of the building followed by many fundraising projects, challenging physical labor, and community collaboration that, over the years, has produced the San Saba Garden Club Clubhouse in use today. In addition, thanks to these determined women of yesteryear, one of San Saba’s historical buildings was rescued and preserved for posterity.

The original Dodging the Wrecking Ball play was written by Aileen Roberts and first performed in 1992. Current SSGC members Lisa Foil and Cindy Sloan edited the script and organized its revival. Members participating in the performance were Marjean Alexander, Rebecca Britton, Lisa Foil, Marti Free, Dianna Furlan, Janis Murray, Debbie Shahan, Cindy Sloan, and Karen Sloan. Keith Shahan played the part of the mayor and the Shahans’ grandson, Risien Shahan, made an impressive wrecking ball operator.

Following the performance, the club conducted its monthly business meeting.

Those unfamiliar with the club’s history were encouraged to tour the clubhouse grounds and read the State of Texas Historical Marker honoring Alma Ward Hamrick (located near the front walkway). Dianna Furlan also pointed out a small headstone in the rear that commemorates Katylee May’s long SSGC association.

In honor of the recent passing of Jeanne Rainbolt, members took a few minutes to reminisce about her sweet and humorous contributions at past Garden Club meetings.

Of particular interest to the community is the upcoming biannual Garden Club Garage Sale at the Civic Center on March 31st and April 1st. Be sure to mark your calendars and take advantage of some of the best deals of the year.