Evergreen Cemetery began as family plots for Tuscaloosa citizens in the mid-nineteenth century. An 1857 letter to the editor in the Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor described citizens' growing frustration with the maintenance of Greenwood Cemetery, leading many to "remove the remains of their friends to the new cemetery, Evergreen. Evergreen was still referred to as the New Cemetery over 30 years later in an article from the Tuscaloosa times, which notied the incorpoation of the Evergreen Cemetery Company and the election of its Board of Directors. Included on the Board were prominent Tuscaloosa citizens John Harris, A.B. McEachin, W.F. Fitts, Jr., and J.I. Hausman. In 1903, Dr. James T. Searcy deeded the cemetery to the city, and later, a three-acre addition was acquired from F.W. Monnish.