The cemetery was established in 1849 when Sacramento founder
John Augustus Sutter, Jr. donated to the city for this purpose. The grounds were landscaped in the Victorian Garden style popular at the time. The
New Helvetia Cemetery was founded in c. 1845 and was also prone to flooding, which would unbury the bodies from the earlier graves; as a result some of the burials from New Helvetia were reinterred to the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery starting as early as 1850. In 1850, some 600 victims of the
Cholera epidemic that swept the city were buried in mass graves in City Cemetery. The remainder 800 victims claimed by the epidemic were buried in the nearby New Helvetia Cemetery, also in mass graves. In 1856, the city engaged a cemetery superintendent and began to plan the grounds. In 1857, the gatehouse and bell tower were constructed. These were demolished in 1949 during the widening of Broadway. Several fraternal groups purchased sections for their members including the
Masons (1859),
Odd Fellows (1861) and the Sacramento Pioneers Association (1862). The city set aside a section for volunteer firemen in 1858 and members of the
Grand Army of the Republic in 1878. The cemetery continued to acquire additional land through 1880 when Margaret Crocker, widow of
Edwin B. Crocker, donated to expand the grounds to total. It was declared a State Historic Landmark on May 5, 1957, by the State Historical Landmarks Commission. The cemetery was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2014. ==Notable burials==