Located about two miles south of the Red River, Mulberry was established in the early 1880s as a small farming community. One of its first settlers was Civil War Captain Thomas Lightfoot, who came from Alabama with his family and bought several thousand acres along the Red River. In 1883, he donated land to the community for a cemetery and a one-room school. The school later closed, and in 1951 D.B. Deupree sold half of its property to the cemetery, with Joe C. Denton paying for the land as a gift to the community. The oldest part of the cemetery lies on the north end overlooking Mulberry Bottom. The first recorded burial there was two-year-old Allis May in 1876, and other family burials date back to 1881. In the northwest corner of the original burial ground is a tree-shaded Mexican section. The first Mexican family to come to Mulberry was Ferman and Rossaria Portillo and their three children in 1902. Over the years, the community suffered multiple natural disasters that took several lives, including the 1905 flooding of Mulberry Bottom, the 1919 Mulberry Cyclone, and the 1959 tornado that destroyed many tombstones and the cemetery fence. Several war veterans are buried there, including the only known Civil War veteran, B.F. Moseley. A flagpole at the main gate honors all veterans, and a cross and monument stand between the original burial ground and the site of the old Mulberry School in memory of those lost and of unmarked graves.