Settlement of Bethel community began in the 1870s, with the Ayers, Cherry, Cook, Couch, Hill, Lamb, Oliver, Overstreet, Park and Richardson families among the first settlers. The Salona School was open here by 1881. When a post office operated from 1889 to 1905, it also took the name Salona, since there was already a Bethel post office in Texas. The community included two churches, a blacksmith, and a medical office. The school consolidated with Bowie in 1952, and the school building was used as a community center until it was razed in 2007. John H. and Liadora Overstreet sold land to Bethel School District No. 53 for a burial ground in 1889. School trustees John Brigance, John Young, and Richard Hunt paid twenty dollars for the parcel. When the nearby Thompson School was demolished, burials from the cemetery at Thompson's Chapel were brought by wagons and reinterred here. In 1890, Harrell Lilly Cherry, Civil War veteran, became the first of many veterans to be buried here. Each May, starting in 1897, citizens of Salona met to maintain the graveyard and enjoy a time of fellowship with a potluck dinner. Reverend W. M. McKee would preach and lead the singing. Today, the tradition is still observed on the first Sunday of May in Montague County, as rural communities commemorate Decoration Day. The Salona Cemetery Association formed in 1897 with Rev. McKee as chairman and H. C. Knightstep as caretaker. In 1928, when additional acreage was needed, the W. C. Richardson family sold their land to increase the size of the cemetery. Salona Cemetery remains the final resting place of earlier generations and a chronicle of this rural settlement. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2010