The historic marker notes that it was begun by the American Securities Company; Lincoln was for Black people, and Greenwood Cemetery, next to it, was for whites.

Started in 1907, they were the first commercial cemeteries in the city, and their design, with curving roads and circles, was influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted.

The first burial took place in 1908; many of the graves are marked by simple concrete slabs with evidences of African-American funerary art and late-Victorian motifs".

[1] A nine-foot tall white marble monument remembers Rufus Payne, Hank Williams's mentor, though the exact location of his grave is not known.

The city had set up the Lincoln Cemetery Rehabilitation Authority and volunteers had started cleaning up and recording names.