The old city cemetery of Paris stands on land once owned by George Washington Wright, founder of the city of Paris. The oldest grave there is said to be that of a free black man who worked for Wright, with a date thought to be 1845 although the stone is illegible. The oldest legible stone marks the grave of Thomas Wortham (1776-1846). The site served as the primary burial ground for Paris between 1845 and 1865 and was also called Wright's Cemetery. In 1866 Evergreen Cemetery, known as the New Cemetery, was begun, and many graves were exhumed and moved there. George W. Wright was buried in the Old Cemetery in 1877. A cemetery association was formed in 1879, and in 1885 Wright heirs deeded the land to its trustees. In 1922 the cemetery was deeded to the city of Paris and a standpipe for the new Lake Crook Waterworks was located there. The cemetery contains approximately 325 graves, with about one hundred intact markers showing that most burials took place between 1870 and 1910. Many early community leaders are buried there, and a granite marker honors members of the 9th Texas Infantry, C. S. A., who died in a measles epidemic in 1862.