Edward Dorris, a stagecoach driver, died of sunstroke or a heart attack en route to Bent's Old Fort, a Barlow and Sanderson stagecoach station in the 1860s. Like others who had gone before him, the hardship of life on the Santa Fe Trail ended here at Bent's Fort. Of the 13 graves located in this cemetery, 12 are covered with adobe bricks, while Dorris' grave is covered with limestone and marked. This may be the cemetery described by visitors to Bent's Fort in the 1840s. "In the evening, another Missouri volunteer died and was buried. They were obliged to cover the graves with prickly pear or cocks to prevent the wolves from tearing the bodies out of the ground..." Lieutenant Albert, US Army of the West, 1847.

The cemetery has never been completely excavated.