John Pyle, a veteran of the Republic of Texas Army, arrived in this area with his family in the 1850s. According to family tradition, the cemetery began in 1854 with the death of Pyle's son-in-law J.P. McFarland. The community that grew up here became known as Pyle Prairie, and the family graveyard eventually became a community cemetery as friends and neighbors were interred there. Family names on the tombstones reflect the area's pioneer heritage, and descendants of those pioneer families maintain the cemetery.