The following month, an adjacent five acres (Section 35, bounded on three sides by McLeod, Gatton and Upward Streets) also were gazetted as permanent cemetery reserve.

[1] The 10 acres (4.0 ha) site was chosen because it was thought to be on dry ground, was sufficiently far from the inhabited section of the town, and was accessible from the hospital reserve.

Only subsequently was it discovered that the site was poorly drained and subject to seasonal flooding, with graves unable to be dug to a greater depth than 3 feet (0.91 m).

A sexton had been appointed by February 1885, and in the same month the trustees submitted to the colonial secretary their first return of receipts and expenses, year ending 31 December 1884.

The cemetery appears to have been divided into sections for the use of various Christian denominations, and an area for non-Christians, in which were buried Chinese, Malays, Javanese, and Aborigines.

The Chinese in particular had contributed significantly to the economic and cultural development of Cairns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and are believed to have celebrated the feast of the dead three times each year at the cemetery.

A new sexton, William Parsons, was appointed, and by his efforts the principal pathway was metalled and bordered with variegated hedging plants and crotons, flowering shrubs and trees were planted along the fence fronting McLeod Street, the graves were cleared of weed and spear grass, and couch grass imported from the south was laid.

[1] The main reason why the unsuitable site remained in use as Cairns' principal cemetery for at least 30 years, was the difficulty experienced in selecting a new location.

[1] The Cairns City Council failed in 1965, 1968/69, 1973/74 and 1986, to gain permission from the Lands Department to convert the McLeod Street cemetery into a park.

The surviving headstones record people from all levels of early Cairns society – professional, business, clerical, political, mercantile – and the cosmopolitan nature of early Cairns is reflected in the range of nationalities, including English, Irish, Scottish, Japanese, Javanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Bulgarian and Swedish, buried in the McLeod Street cemetery.

[2][3] The Pioneer Cemetery, located on a level site on the southern corner of McLeod and Grove Streets, is bounded by the Cairns railway to the southwest and industrial buildings to the southeast.

[1] The cemetery is well maintained, with many of the trees which had caused structural damage to graves having been removed, and an extensive landscape program undertaken.

[1] A timber paling fence has been constructed along the southwest boundary, with pine log barriers along both street frontages.

[1] McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

The McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery survives as a unique historical record of the multi-cultural social, economic and political life of early Cairns, and is an unusual illustration of the major events which shaped the development of Cairns and Far North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.