Members of the Roanoke I.O.O.F. Lodge No. 421 purchased this land in 1897 for use as a burial ground. Covering approximately five and one-half acres, it always has been maintained as a public graveyard rather than being limited to lodge members' families, and memberships in the Roanoke Lodge were eventually transferred to Denton along with those of other rural I.O.O.F. lodges. The first person buried here was James DeWitt Pressley, who died in 1897, although one tombstone bears an earlier date because Mrs. Calvin Abner Sams, buried on family property when she died in 1882, was reinterred here in 1914. Near the trunk of the Hanging Tree in the northeast section lies the burial site of an alleged horse thief who was hanged there in 1906. Another section was reserved for the families of the railroad crew who worked here during the 1920s. The cemetery also holds the graves of many pioneers, including members of the Sams, Fanning, Cowan, Seagraves, Buell, Lassen, Boutwell, Taylor, Mitchell, and McMahon families.