Pioneers Rest is the oldest public cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas and one of the oldest in Tarrant County. Its use as a burial ground began in 1849, the same year that the fort was established by the United States Army. Pioneers Rest is located in the 600 block of Samuels Avenue near its intersection with Cold Springs Road, immediately north of downtown Fort Worth. Many early settlers are buried at Pioneers Rest, which was referred to as the "old cemetery," "city cemetery," or "Samuels Avenue cemetery" until 1909. Veterans of every American war from the War of 1812 to World War II are buried at Pioneers Rest. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. History Local physician Adolphe Gouhenant donated three acres of land on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River for a public cemetery, where the first burials were the eleven soldiers who died (most likely from cholera) in the months after the establishment of the fort. Sophie and Willie Arnold, the two young children of Major Ripley Allen Arnold, the officer responsible for establishment of the fort, both perished in 1850 and were buried at the cemetery. Major Arnold, considered to be the founder of the city of Fort Worth, was killed in a duel at Fort Graham in present-day Hill County, Texas in 1853. Originally buried at Fort Graham, the following year his body was moved and reinterred at what was then Fort Worth's only public cemetery. A cemetery association was organized in 1870 to care for the site; its trustees included city leaders K. M. Van Zandt, M. B. Loyd, W. A. Darter, and W. P. Burts. By this time, the cemetery was nearly full and local leader John Peter Smith donated land to create Oakwood Cemetery, across the Trinity River from downtown Fort Worth. In 1871 an additional three acres was donated by Baldwin Samuels, after which Samuels Avenue is named, to expand the "old cemetery." In 1909, the cemetery was formally named "Pioneers Rest" and the organization known as the Samuels Avenue Cemetery Association reformed as the Pioneers Rest Cemetery Association. Plans were made for a monument to honor Ripley Allen Arnold, and in 1911 a subscription fund for the monument was established under the condition that Arnold's body would be moved within the cemetery to a new Arnold Park. In 1917 it was discovered that the