In 1914, workers in the local lumber and turpentine industries organized under Deacon J.B. Anderson to form Mt. Zion Church in Haines City, and trustees purchased this plot of land for ten dollars and other valuable considerations. Two years later, a small wooden church and cemetery were established on the site. In 1949, the church, by then called the New Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, moved to a larger site on North 8th Street, but burials continued at the cemetery until 1951. After being separated from the church, the cemetery became known as the Cemetery on the Hill or the Old Cemetery. Many formerly enslaved people are believed to be buried there, including Ethel Mae Coleman (1846–1931) and Willis Beal (1855–1930), but missing records and illegible headstones prevent definitive identification of many people interred at the site. Starting in the 1970s, the Downing family, who lived on the site of the former church, cared for the cemetery. On August 16, 2016, the City Commission passed a resolution renaming it Oak-Hill Cemetery and, two months later, took over maintenance of all cemeteries within the city limits.