It contains burials of Confederate States of America leaders, as well Benjamin Sterling Turner, a formerly enslaved African-American who served as U.S. Representative for Alabama during the Reconstruction era.

The cemetery is at 110 Dallas Avenue approximately 0.7 miles (1.1 km) west of downtown Selma.

[9][10] Elodie Todd Dawson, buried nearby, was head of the Ladies Memorial Association (later the United Daughters of the Confederacy) and spearheaded the effort to build the $5,500 Confederate Monument in the cemetery.

[13][16] In 2015, the Elodie Todd Dawson sculpture was named one of Alabama's "most photographed cemetery monuments".

The unusual name arises from the gables that were designed as bird houses, since closed to preserve the structure.