The cemetery has been in continuous operation, serving the Newport News and Hampton, Virginia, since 1888.

Greenlawn Memorial Park is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The incorporators were T. H. Gordon, Louis Bremond, I. E. White, Theodore Livezey, E. Clayton, E. B. Smith, T. E. Monis and M. B. Crowell.

At the center of the cemetery is a 25-foot (7.6 m) obelisk erected in 1900 marking the mass grave of 163 Confederate Prisoners of War.

At the foot of this monument is a granite ledger with the names, rank, state and unit of each soldier.