‘HOSS CARTWRIGHT’ STILL AN ATTRACTION : TV STAR’S GRAVE A SMALL BONANZA FOR TOWN

It is an unremarkable tombstone in a simple family plot, but the final resting place of the actor who played Hoss Cartwright on the TV western “Bonanza” has become a tourist attraction in this farm town of 2,100 in northeast Texas.

“I’ve had people from Maine and California stop in here looking for Hoss Cartwright,” Orval Miller, owner of Miller’s Grocery, said of the influx of fans of the long-running series in which Dan Blocker played the hulking cowboy.

Blocker died in 1974 at the age of 42 of blood clots in his lungs, after undergoing gall bladder surgery. His body was flown from California for burial in his birthplace.

He is buried in Woodman Cemetery beside his father, Shack, and sister, Virginia. His grave is covered with a sprinkling of clover.

Each year, hundreds come to visit the site. “They want to see where he’s buried,” said cafe owner Roy Blankenship.

“It’s a simple tombstone, nothing big or outstanding,” said Norene Bates, a close friend of the Blocker family.

But tourists keep coming. Blankenship says strangers who stop at Roy’s Chicken Shack usually have one question: “It’s Hoss Cartwright they ask for--not Dan Blocker.”

“Most visitors come here in the summer months,” said funeral director Robby Bates. “A lot of them are retired people pulling trailers.”

Blocker’s funeral was the biggest event in DeKalb history. Television networks and Time magazine covered the funeral.

“It was a nationwide shock,” said Bates, who handled the burial arrangements. “A man of his size, his vitality--to die so suddenly like that.”

County officials said Blocker was the largest baby in Bowie County, weighing 14 pounds at birth. Blocker wore custom-made combat boots, size 14EEE, during the Korean War. His build helped him land a part in the TV series.

“If I had been an average-sized guy, I never would have stood a chance,” Blocker once admitted. “There were only a few big guys around.”

Blocker was very popular, residents said.

“Dan was the heart of ‘Bonanza’,” Bates said. “Along with his brute strength, he had compassion. He could be roused to temper, but at the same time he could melt. That endeared him to a lot of people.”