El Paso Cemetery opened in 1878 on a slight hill in the center of Derby, though at the time it stood amid farmland about a mile southeast of the growing settlement, nine years after the Garrett family had staked a claim near Spring Creek. Over time it expanded, and the original cemetery now forms only the southeast corner of the grounds. In this historic area are buried many early inhabitants of Rockford Township and the town of El Paso, later renamed Derby. The first interment in 1878 was Robert H. Stafford, born May 15, 1823, in Indiana and died Dec. 17, 1878, of “lung fever”; he was the husband of Mary A. Stafford, a resident of Gypsum Township, and was buried in Block 7, Lot 20, Space 1. In the spring and summer of 1879, ten interments were made “from private cemeteries,” apparently transferring family members from farm burials to the new cemetery. Cemetery officials still maintain the original custom-made leather-bound Book of Interments from Topeka, and its entries record place of nativity and causes of death under the heading “Disease,” including “kicked by a mule,” “thrown from a horse,” and “drowned in well,” while consumption was the most frequent cause of death in the early entries. The cemetery is also associated with many early settlers and town figures, including Alexander and Margaret Garrett, Dr. Henry C. Tucker, Samuel Wade McCoy, Albert and Marie Lauber, Gertie and Bill Chamberlin, George Sickler, Napoleon B. Sickler, T. D. Wardell, Charlie H. Waugh, John Hout Minnich, Albert Minnich, Dr. William E. Dixon, and Edward Braden.