Established in 1846 and originally known as the Walcott graveyard, Oakwood Cemetery contains the earliest documented burial of James G. Gilmer (1814-1846), a Kentucky native who came to Texas in the late 1830s, settled in this area, and was buried on his family land. His widow, Elizabeth Parrish Gilmer, later married Benjamin Stuart Walcott, and Mr. and Mrs. Walcott gave the land containing Gilmer's grave to the community as a public graveyard. The cemetery later became known as Oakwood Cemetery because of the area's large oak trees. Members of Honey Grove's early pioneer families and many of their descendants are interred there, along with over 275 veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II, some with gravestones and some, whose bodies were not returned, with memorials. Also buried there are members of Honey Grove's pre-Civil War slave community and freed black citizens. Land acquisitions over the years increased the cemetery's size, an entrance gate was erected in 1910, a fence was built around the graveyard about 1913, and the Oakwood Cemetery Association, formed in 1923, maintains the historic cemetery.