The Texas Gulf Sulfur Company began mining operations in Wharton County in 1927, and the town that developed around the mine became known as New Gulf, or Newgulf, to distinguish it from the company’s earlier mine at Gulf in Matagorda County, later called Old Gulf. The New Gulf mine made its first shipment in 1929 and was eventually recognized as the largest sulfur-producing mine in the world. The company town had as many as 1,500 residents and was segregated along racial and ethnic lines, with separate Anglo, Hispanic, and African-American housing and facilities including schools, stores, scout troops, and fishing piers at the company reservoir. The company provided a one-acre plot on a gravel road for a Mexican-American cemetery known as Campo Santo. County records, family documents, and oral histories indicate that 118 individuals of Mexican descent are buried there. The first burial was two-day-old Ismael Ramirez in March 1927. Many graves were marked only by funeral homes’ temporary medical stakes that have long since eroded. Although there was no formal layout, eleven rows of graves eventually took shape. There has never been a formal cemetery association, and residents and family members have long maintained the grounds themselves. Though at times threatened by neglect and proposed redevelopment, Campo Santo has been restored since 2007 by descendants and former residents and continues as a proud and beloved icon of family and cultural heritage.