New Ulm began as Duff's Settlement, named for James C. Duff, who acquired title to the site in 1841. A post office began operation in 1853, and at that time the town's name was changed to New Ulm in honor of Ulm in the province of Wurttemberg, Germany, the homeland of many early settlers. The original town stood near the site of New Ulm Cemetery, one mile north of the present town of New Ulm. In 1892, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad Company of Texas laid tracks, streets, and lots one mile south of the existing New Ulm for a new townsite, and settlers soon abandoned the former location. The earliest recorded burial in New Ulm Cemetery was C. J. Schuette in 1853, and Josef Lidumil Lesikar, a leader in bringing early Czech settlers to America, is also buried there. Although the earliest land and burial records were lost in a fire, existing records show that the property was sold to New Ulm Cemetery in 1889 and that the New Ulm Cemetery Association was already in existence in 1915. A decoration day has been scheduled every year since at least 1919 and is still held, with services alternating between St. John Lutheran Church of New Ulm and the Industry United Methodist Church. Over the years, improvements to the cemetery included construction of an entrance in 1924, a storage building in 1933, and a chapel in 2002, and those buried there include veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.