The land on the corner of Orange Ave and I-581 is the remaining sacred ground of the Old Lick “Colored” Burial Grounds (Old Lick Cemetery). It is one of Roanoke's oldest cemeteries and once extended west across Interstate 581 to the original Lucy Addison High School.

The Town of Big Lick acquired the land of the former Tinker Creek Baptist Church in 1880 and the First Presbyterian Church in 1882 for use as a school for Black children and as a free burial ground.

In 1892, the Town of Big Lick became the City of Roanoke.

The First Baptist Church of Gainsboro purchased adjoining land from private residences in 1895 and 1897 to create a small congregational cemetery. Although there were two distinctly separate cemeteries —a poorly maintained free burial ground and a neatly kept congregational cemetery —the entire area became known as the “Old Lick Cemetery.”

It is impossible to know precisely how many people were interred in both cemeteries; however, death certificates, which began in 1912, indicate that more than 1,600 people were interred. Burials ceased in the 1940s.

In 1961, 961 people were disinterred from the city’s portion of the cemetery and relocated to Coyner Springs to accommodate the building of Interstate 581. The majority of the City’s burial ground has been razed, and only 28 of the 961 were identified with stones, and the remaining 933 were placed in a mass grave.

The First Baptist Church of Gainsboro’s historic congregational cemetery and a small sliver of the public grounds are all that remain.

In 2019, the Friends of Old Lick, in association with the First Baptist Church of Gainsboro, began work on the grounds to restore, reclaim, and maintain the Old Lick Cemetery and provide a place for visitors to learn, remember, and reflect on the people buried here and the injustice to those removed