Smith Cemetery became the burial place of pioneers and generations of their descendants on a knoll that was wilderness when the cemetery opened but now overlooks nine urban areas. Nancy Owen Smith founded it for her family and neighbors. The first burial was her husband, Hans Smith (1799-1852), a lawmaker in Missouri from 1830 to 1832 and 1834 to 1836 and in Arkansas from 1844 to 1846, who moved here in 1846. He opened the area's first cotton gin, helped organize Ellis County in 1850, and was robbed and murdered while buying goods in Houston for his store. The Smith Cemetery Association was organized in 1953 and chartered in 1955.