[2] As of 2014[update], an estimated 6,000 people were buried in the district, including multiple prominent Galveston citizens.

[3] Galveston, Texas, was hit hard with nine yellow fever epidemics between 1839 and 1867, necessitating additional public burial sites.

[4] The island's last yellow fever epidemic in 1867 killed hundreds and caused thousands of residents to flee.

One resident who stayed behind remembered that the victims "died on the island like sheep.”[5] By 1912, the stretch of 42nd Street that separated Evergreen and Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemeteries from the others was closed and removed, creating one contiguous complex.

It is alleged to be haunted by Thomas Nicaragua Smith, executed as a deserter from the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

During the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) agenda, a Galveston city ordinance renamed it Oleander Cemetery in 1939.

[10] Oleander Cemetery was the site of the earliest Jewish burials, with the southeast corner set aside for them.

[14] It was expanded as the New City Cemetery in response to the 1900 Galveston hurricane that claimed thousands of lives.

Many mausoleums serve as family burial chambers and were designed in Grecian or Roman Revival styles.