In 1904, newly-arrived resident Robert Rodgers asked the Federal Government for a post office to be set up called Canille (he said the spelling was his for "canela"). The post office was authorized as Canille, Arizona Territory on August 22, 1904 and was located in a small building on the Rodgers' property. Robert was the first Postmaster from 1904 to 1906, followed by his wife Anna from 1906 to 1910. In 1910, Addie Parker became Postmaster and moved the office to her home. The Canille post office was discontinued on April 30, 1924 and all mail was re-directed to the post office at Elgin.

 Shortly after the Canille post office came into being, the Forest Service established the Canille Ranger Station which for a few years occupied the same small building as the post office on the Rodgers' property; Robert was one of the first Forest Rangers. Later the Ranger Station name was changed to Canelo and the station moved to its current historial location.

 In addition to the post office, the homesteaders and residents needed a school for the increasing number of children in the area. Henry Pyeatt suggested using the vacant Evans Camp School building which had been closed when Santa Cruz County separated from Pima County and Canille School District #10 was created; after several years in the Evans Camp building, the school moved to the now historical Canelo One Room School; one of the first teachers was Fern Bartlett .

 And they needed a cemetery. In 1909 the City (Court Street) Cemetery in Tucson was decomissioned. City Cemetery notified Mattie Riggs Johnson, an early Canelo homesteader whose mother, sister, niece and third husband were buried there, that she had to move them. She chose a small mesa near Canelo with black oaks and junipers growing on it as the place to re-bury them. By 1917, the demand for more burial space was becoming clear, so Mattie petitioned the Forest Service for a 10 acre allotment of her own leased land on that mesa to be set up as a formal cemetery. Robert, who was the Forest Ranger in charge, granted the petition on April 1, 1917 to the Canille School District #10, the only existing entity to receive the grant.

 Mattie began fencing the area and her son, James Finley, donated money to permanently endow the cemetery. In 1920, the Black Oak Cemetery Association was organized and Ida Speed Turney was elected President. In 1958, Ida donated the native stone and wrought iron entry gate in memory of her husband, Mark, and her parents, Ernest and Minnie Morton Speed. In 1962, James and his wife, Margaret Igo Finley, sponsored the construction of the roofed community chapel "in memory of Mattie Riggs Johnson whose relatives were the first to be [layed] to rest in this cemetery".

 In 1972 the Black Oak Cemetery Association was incorporated as a 501 (c)(13) governed by a board of directors which takes care of the maintenance and the assignment of the plots. Burial in the cemetery is open to and free of charge for those who lived in the area prior to December 1952 (considered as pioneers), those who have relatives already buried at Black Oak, and those whose burial is approved upon application to the board of directors. As of fall 2024, there are about 490 burials and memorials in the cemetery.

 This history has been written using multiple sources including Betty Barr's transcription of Cora Greenlee Everhart's hand-written journal in the files of the Bowman-Stradling History Center, Sonoita.For a written tour of some of the headstones, see this article by Betty Barr from the Nogales International, May 1, 2001.