The original two-acre tract of this burial ground was set aside for the area's pioneer settlers by Daniel Aerl, who is buried there. The cemetery was established on December 12, 1881, in conjunction with the sale of sixty acres of land to financier Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, who had the property platted for the town of Lorena along a line of his Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. He named the village for Lorena Westbrook Robertson, who was born in 1861, died in 1952, and is also buried there; she was the daughter of local landowner C.A. Westbrook. The first burial there was Lemuel Crook, the infant son of S.J. and G.S. Crook, who died in 1882, and the next interment, two years later, was nine-year-old Jacky Pool. Other graves are those of pioneer families, early community leaders, and many military veterans. Additional land was later acquired from the Westbrook families and from the family of Walter Evans, Sr. The Lorena Cemetery Association was established in 1914 to provide maintenance funds, and in 1970 the organization set up a perpetual care trust fund.