The Ehren African American community included many local African Americans employed by the Ehren Pine Company sawmill and living in company housing, while others worked in agriculture and for the railroad. Mount Carmel A.M.E. Church and nearby Oak Grove Baptist Church served the community’s spiritual needs. Reverend Joe Bowen was one of the pastors of Oak Grove before that congregation disbanded in the 1940s. Oak Grove also served as a school, where B.H. McMorris was a teacher and George Members was supervisor in 1901. In 1927, part of the church property was deeded to the Pasco County Board of Public Instruction to build a school, and Frank Phillips and L.G. Bowen were appointed school trustees. After the sawmill burned in 1920, many residents moved away, though some remained and worked in Drexel, Odessa, and other nearby communities. Mount Carmel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a wooden structure on this site, also served the local African American community, and an early pastor was Reverend Byrel Dawkins. The congregation folded sometime after the Great Depression, and members joined other local churches. The cemetery has many unmarked graves, and the date of the first burial is unknown. Although it is believed to date to the mid-1800s, the first marked grave is from 1903 and the latest is from 1954. In 2006, the Pasco County Black Caucus, working with the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners and other concerned individuals, began efforts to provide recognition and perpetual care of the site.