Before the Civil War, this rich river bottom land was known for cotton, corn, sugar cane crops, and a sugar mill. After the emancipation of slaves in 1865, area plantation owners struggled to work the fields and mill. In 1878, landowners L.A. Ellis and E.H. Cunningham negotiated a lease with the State of Texas to open a private prison using convict labor, and five years later the state gained control over the prison and inmates. The sugar trade thrived here, and in 1908 I.H. Kempner and W.T. Eldridge bought the small town of Sugar Land, created the Imperial Sugar Company, and established a stable company town and workforce. Also in 1908, the State of Texas purchased 5,235 acres of adjoining land and started the Imperial State Prison Farm, which, with more than 400 inmates, was one of Texas's first state-run prisons. Once dubbed the "Hellhole on the Brazos," this and other Texas prisons became notorious for deplorable inmate treatment and living conditions before public outcry forced reforms in 1912. The cemetery contains 31 marked graves of inmates and guards dating from 1912 to 1943, some with graphic descriptions of their deaths. By the late 1940s, all Texas inmates were buried at Huntsville Prison Unit or in prisoners' hometowns. Later called the Central State Prison Farm and then Central Unit, the prison farm operated here until 2011, when the state sold part of its land for a new housing development. The city of Sugar Land purchased 65 acres, including the cemetery, for parkland and to ensure its preservation; a white cross surrounded by prisoner-made bricks stands at the center of the cemetery, and the gate and some sections of the fence are original.
