This one-acre cemetery was created in 1872 by and for the 2,500 Chinese laborers building the Central Pacific, later named Southern Pacific, railroad south from Sacramento. A tiny town of mostly tents stood beside the tracks and was named Borden for Dr. Joseph Borden, a prominent settler in the surrounding Alabama Colony. According to custom, many of the men originally buried here were later removed and reburied in their home villages in China. Those not removed were either unidentified or their home villages were unknown, and many of these graves were unmarked.