Confederate Memorial Park

Confederate Memorial Park. . , The spot where you are standing was once a potato field farmed by the employees, and to a lesser extent, the residents of the Confederate Home. The Confederate Home Board requested the state legislature to set aside 92 acres of the home's farm unneeded for food production as a memorial park dedicated to the valor of the Confederate soldier. Both houses of the legislature unanimously passed the enabling legislation., Hillard Brewster, a landscape engineer from the State Penal Board, volunteered his time to help create the park. The response in the Higginsville area was profound. On Feb. 28, 1925, the stores closed, the schools dismissed,"... and after a parade through the main streets of the town bands of men and boys went on farm wagons, for the farmers were there too, dug up good big trees in the timber everywhere, for nobody refused this privilege on their property. And some hundred trees were brought into the Park, and planted on that rainy gloomy cold day.", "The spirits of every body were warmed however by the hot coffee and wieners, which the good women of the community had been preparing while the men toiled in the timber, and in digging holes for trees which were to be brought in.", Two generations after the Civil War, a memorial park devoted to the valor of the Confederate soldier still evoked a powerful community reaction. Confederate Memorial State Historic Site today preserves this park as a continuing memorial to those Missourians and soldiers from other states who served in the cause of the southern Confederacy., Higginsville Into Movies , Farmers and townspeople asked to take part in producing a picture of the town Friday in Memorial Park exercises , and , Many Take Part in Tree Planting , [newspaper article excerpts from Higginsville Advance, Feb. 25, 1925, and Mar. 6, 1925]