Missouri's Confederate Soldiers Home dates to the early 1890s and was conceived as a place of refuge and residence for indigent Confederate veterans, their spouses, and minor children. It was the only such facility in the states constructed and originally furnished through private donations. The Ex-Confederate Association of Missouri, the Confederate Home Association, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the United Confederate Veterans of Missouri were instrumental in raising funds and planning for the home, and donations came statewide from ex-Confederate and ex-Union soldiers, showing that passions had cooled in the quarter century since the Civil War. In seeking support from fellow Confederate veterans, Jo. O. Shelby, former general of Missouri Confederate Cavalry, urged that the home be sustained. The main buildings included a large dormitory building, a women's dormitory, hospital buildings, a greenhouse, a commissary, and various others. In the mid-1950s, after some of the home buildings were destroyed, the property was divided between the state agencies of Mental Health and the Missouri State Park Board. Surviving buildings include a large brick hospital erected in 1922, a white two-story frame residence for hired hands, the Confederate Home Chapel, and one cottage, with some maintained as part of the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and others as part of the Higginsville Habitation Center by the Missouri Department of Mental Health.