The Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home

The Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home. 1902 – 1939. This is the site of Alabama's only Confederate veterans' home. The Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home operated for 37 years as a haven for many of Alabama's destitute Confederate veterans and their wives or widows., Twenty two buildings once stood on this 102-acre site, providing the veterans with a less institutionalized environment than veterans' homes in some of the other states. The structures included nine cottages, the Commandant's house, an administration building known as "Memorial Hal, a mess hall, and a hospital. Elaborate water, gas, and sewage systems also served the complex., The Soldiers' Home began operation in May 1902. It was designed to house 100 residents but reached a peak of 91 veterans and 13 wives during the years 1914-1918. Thereafter the resident population declined until the death of the last veteran in June 1934. The facility continued to house a small number of Confederate widows until the Home was officially closed on October 31, 1939. , The buildings, with the exception of the mess hall which stood until the mid 1960's, were dismantled and the care of the Home's two cemeteries transferred to the Alabama Soil Conservation Service. , In 1964 the site of the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home was preserved by Act of the Alabama Legislature in the establishment of Confederate Memorial Park as, , "...a fitting shrine , to the honor of Alabama , citizens of the , Confederacy..." . Photo captions: , Bottom left: 1907 postcard. From left to right: Memorial Hall, hospital, "Camp Hardee" cottage , Top right: John S. Tucker, Co D, 29th Alabama Infantry, 1861 - John S. Tucker, Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home, 1915 , Bottom right: Jefferson Manly Falkner (top row, 6th from left holding straw hat), founder of the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home, with friends, family and the first three veterans to enter the Home, May 1902.