The Gothic Revival James Monroe Tomb monument designed by Albert Lybrock resembles a bird cage surrounding a simple granite sarcophagus.

[15] In 1869, a 90-foot (27 m) high granite pyramid designed by Charles H. Dimmock was built as a memorial to the more than 11,000 enlisted men of the Confederate Army buried in the cemetery.

"[7] It was a project supported by the Hollywood Ladies' Memorial Association, a group of Southern women dedicated to honoring and caring for the burial sites of fallen Confederate soldiers.

[18] The pyramid became a symbol of the Hollywood Memorial Association, appearing on its stationery as well as on the front of a pamphlet of buried soldiers, the Register of the Confederate Dead.

[19] William Byrd III, a wealthy planter, politician and military officer, was facing financial problems and divided his estate in Richmond known as the Belvidere into several plots 100-acres in size for sale.

"[5] In 1847, Joshua J. Fry and William H. Haxall, visited Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.

[21] Fry, Haxall, and 40 other prominent Richmond citizens[22] purchased 42 acres[7] from Lewis E. Harvie on June 3, 1847, for $4,075 to establish the cemetery.

[26] Hollywood Cemetery became so popular, that by the mid-1850s, the city of Richmond implemented an omnibus to transport visitors there every afternoon.

Richmond citizens became outraged when they learned that soldiers that died in local hospitals were buried in potter's fields.

[27] The initial two acres assigned for soldier burials became full by July 1862 and the cemetery purchased additional land funded by the confederate government.

[28] After the war, the Ladies' Memorial Association worked to reinter 2,935 confederate soldiers from Gettysburg to Hollywood Cemetery.

Women were not allowed to be buried in the soldiers’ section of Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery at the time of Mrs. Pickett’s death in 1931.

In 1998, for the first time a woman's remains have ever been allowed in this area, Mrs. Pickett was reburied in the Gettysburg soldiers’ section of Hollywood Cemetery by her husband.

[34] In 1876, the Gothic Revival stone structure designed to look like a ruined medieval tower was built at the entrance to house the chapel, office and receiving vault.

[15] A local legend claims the statue was moved to the cemetery to prevent it from being melted down and used for bullets in the Civil War.

[4] A place rich in history, legend, and gothic landscape, Hollywood Cemetery is also frequented by many of the local students attending Virginia Commonwealth University.