After the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, many Japanese businessmen began to settle in the surrounding area of Tawau.

On 19 January 1916, the Japanese Nippon Industrial Company bought 240 acres for rubber plantations and another 607 hectares of adjacent land.

One of the graves listed five Japanese names, such as Sadatoshi Ohta, Ryoichi Muromoto, Isao Ohtomo, Koji Matsuo, and Takeshi Kusumoto.

On the back of one of the monuments built after the Second World War, several rows of Japanese characters can be seen, whose translation is as follows:

Former Tawau Rubber Estate employee Shimuzu Tatsuzo mourned with tears and built this grave stone commemorating the 63 years of the reign of Emperor Shōwa on 25 May.