Oakridge Cemetery includes the earliest known burial in what became the cemetery from 1832, the year after Goshen’s founding, when a grist mill operated along Rock Run Creek. The trustees of the First Church established the cemetery in 1839, and it passed to the City of Goshen in 1859. A green octagonal building was constructed in 1889 as a receiving vault to house winter deaths until the ground thawed. Its brick street is a relic of the National Recovery Act of 1933; it was once called North Street and turned northwest toward Elkhart as it proceeded out of the cemetery. Oakridge contains numerous historical burials, including figures from local and state politics, among them more than a dozen former mayors of Goshen. Veterans from every major U.S. war are buried here, including a Revolutionary War veteran and a Civil War Medal of Honor winner. Its unique sections include the Grand Army of the Republic, potter’s field, and sections founded by and for Sharis Israel, the International Order of Odd Fellows, and Eastern Orthodox churches.