After the end of the
American Civil War in
Missouri, veterans of the
Confederate States Army faced hard times. Confederate veterans, some of whom had difficulty accessing medical treatment and who had been disenfranchised from voting, met throughout the state periodically after the war. At one such meeting in
Higginsville in 1889, the idea of creating an
old soldiers' home to care for aging Confederate veterans was discussed. In 1891, in the Higginsville vicinity were purchased to establish the old soldier's home. The families of Confederate veterans were also allowed to live at the site. A chapel located on the park grounds was moved in 1913, as the aging veterans were having difficulty walking to the chapel for religious services; the chapel's basement was also used for the production of
hard cider. In 1925, Missouri designated of the home as a memorial to Confederate soldiers. The state's land acquisition process was completed in 1952. In 1954, most of the remaining buildings in the park were torn down. Beginning in 1956, parts of the site were also used for storage by a local school, and the chapel was technically under the administration of the
Missouri Department of Mental Health until 1977. At the time of the register listing, the chapel was assessed to be in good condition, while the cottage was given a lower condition rating of fair. The cottage was still located in its original site, while the chapel had been moved twice: once in 1913 and once in 1978 when it was returned to its original site after a concrete basement had been built there. In the 2000s, a
Confederate flag officially flown at the site was removed when the state government declared that only the
United States flag and the
flag of Missouri could be flown at state parks; the Confederate flag was displayed, not flown, while the site was used as an old soldiers' home. While
many Confederate monuments and memorials have been removed in recent years, there has been very little pressure to remove or rename the site. The journalist Seth Boester, writing for the
Columbia Missourian, has speculated that this is because the site's historic usage as a retirement home makes it less controversial. ==Features==