Originally designated as one of the four public squares of twenty acres each in the Milledgeville town plan of 1803, it later came to be known as Cemetery Square. Many people associated with Milledgeville and Georgia history, such as L.Q.C. Lamar, Congressman Carl Vinson, and Flannery O'Connor, as well as early Georgia governors, legislators, college presidents, slaves, and soldiers, are buried here.