In 1880, C.N. Curry, C.E. Bell and their families settled in an area known as Bluff Creek Valley. Jack Mackey, a local cowboy, suggested their community be named in honor of John N. Winters, a rancher and land agent. The families spent the following decades building typical services for area residents, including a school, post office and newspaper. The city was officially incorporated in 1909, the same year the Abilene and Southern Railway built an extension from Abilene to Winters. The Winters Lodge No. 184 of the Knights of Pythias established a cemetery near Winters to serve as a public burial place for local residents. The Knights of Pythias, founded in Washington D.C. in 1864, is an international, non-sectarian order. In 1910, G.A. Buchanan, S.H. Farrar and Albert Spill, trustees of Lodge No. 184, purchased 10.5 acres from D.R. Smith. They conveyed the land for the cemetery to the city. The city named it Fairview Cemetery. Several community members buried at Fairview have death dates prior to 1910. The burials at Fairview Cemetery represent the history of the area and the contributions of its residents to major U.S. events. Many people interred here are first generation German immigrants or of German heritage, representing the first wave of European migration to this area. Among those interred at Fairview are veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Also notable are several gravestones belonging to members of the large fraternal order, Woodmen of the World. Fairview Cemetery is significant chronicle of this Runnels County community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2022