The task was given to Vicente Carranceja, the Inspector General for Public Works.

With a budget of P30,000 from the Ayuntamiento he worked with Marcelo Ramirez and began the project on August 3, 1864.

[2] Spanish officials warned Filipino rebels that once they joined the uprising, they can no longer be buried in Catholic cemeteries on the consecrated ground like La Loma and thus denied of what then was considered a "decent" burial in their time of death.

During the early phases of the Philippine-American War, the cemetery's chapel was the focal point of the Battle of Caloocan.

Campo Santo de La Loma is one of the few sites that escaped ruin during World War II in the 1945 Battle of Manila where most of the city's collection of architecture was destroyed.