Fort Bragg Main Post Cemetery was established during the 1918 influenza pandemic for interments of civilian workers (most Puerto Rican) whose remains, for a number of reasons, could not be shipped home. Between the wars the post was an artillery base, and the cemetery was mainly used for the burial of dependents. In 1940 Fort Bragg was designated as a Selective Service Reception Station, and in 1942 Fort Bragg and nearby Camp Mackall became major airborne training sites. A number of interments from that period were from training accidents, but there are also several German POWs buried here (Row 26) who either died accidentally or from disease. After the war, the cemetery took on its main responsibility as a veterans' cemetery for the central North Carolina area. The cemetery was closed to new interments after the nearby Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake was established in the 1990s.