Harlingen Cemetery came into legal existence in 1912, when Lon C. Hill, founder of the city of Harlingen and president of the Harlingen Land and Water Company, sold 7.6 acres at this site for one dollar to its trustees. Burials had taken place here since the 1909 death of Robert Keen Weems, a teenager who had come to the area in a freight car from Houston, and although Weems was the first buried here, others who had died earlier, such as George Dorough, were later reinterred in the cemetery. The cemetery was originally divided into sections for babies, Blacks, Anglos, and Hispanics. After it was deeded to the city of Harlingen in 1947, those divisions were no longer used, though tombstone designs and grave decorations continued to reflect diverse cultural influences. Among the community leaders buried here are James Lockhart, the town's first postmaster, Horace Johnson, a Cameron County deputy sheriff, and Daniel L. Hinojosa, a Texas Ranger, and the cemetery remains a reminder of the surrounding community's rich heritage.