Pioneers from Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, and Wisconsin settled here in the 1850s, drawn by fertile soil, a good water supply, and abundant building materials. Their colony on the Ben Rue Survey was first known as the Rue settlement. Members of the Rue family were probably the first buried on the land that became this cemetery, although the earliest legible grave marker is that of John Phillips, dated 1870. More than 80 burials took place in the 19th century, reflecting the hardships of pioneer life. The name Good Hope came from the Good Hope Baptist Church, organized in 1875, and the settlement also became known as Good Hope, though it was at times called Parvin. In 1903 a cemetery association was formed to care for the graveyard, and in 1904 Ben Rue, then living in Fannin County, formally transferred the four acres he had set aside for community purposes to the association. After local churches disbanded and the school closed in 1949, the community's population declined, leaving the cemetery as one of the few physical reminders of the early pioneers and the once-thriving community.