Matthews and Robert Shanks of Alabama settled here with their families in 1859, and a small farming community developed. In 1870 a school was built on a one-acre site donated by R. C. Murray. Land beside the schoolyard became a public burial ground and was known as Shanks Cemetery after Shanks Post Office opened in 1896. The earliest recorded burial was Burgess A. Whatley (1854-1892). In 1893 G.W. Bell deeded another half acre east of the graveyard. The school building was torn down in 1917, and Shanks Cemetery Association has maintained the site since 1935.