Montrose Cemetery was founded in 1902 by Andrew Kircher. Today, the cemetery is still owned and operated by his descendants. He was a funeral home operator in Chicago's German Town Community, and purchased prairie land for the purposes of a new cemetery. The land was located across from Bohemian National Cemetery and next to Saint Lucas Cemetery.

In 1908, when Kircher realized that no monument had been erected to memorialize the 600 victims of the Chicago Iroquois Theatre Fire (which occurred on December 30, 1903), he took it upon himself to erect a memorial. Today, the Iroquois Theatre Fire Memorial still stands near the entrance to the cemetery.

The cemetery covers 62 acres of land. The chapel building was constructed in 1912, and remains today. Montrose is a very diverse, non-sectarian cemetery, and includes special Japanese, East Indian, Iranian, Cambodian, German, Assyrian, Serbian, Korean, Russian, Hispanic, Jewish and Muslim sections.