Isaac West built this small house about 1800. When the Civil War began, it was home to his son Allen Russell West, his daughter Nancy Saulter Lynch, Nancy's widowed daughter Margaret Jane Metcalfe, and Margaret's two sons, Charles Pollan Metcalfe and George Chilton Metcalfe, Jr., while twenty enslaved people owned by West also lived on the property. During the Confederate army's brief occupation of Mill Springs after its arrival in November 1861, and with Allen West's consent, General Felix K. Zollicoffer established his headquarters in the house, whose large wooden additions stood on each end, and the farm became a supply depot for the encampment at Mill Springs, where over 6,000 men drilled, built earthworks, and prepared for battle. After the Confederate defeat and Zollicoffer's death at the Battle of Mill Springs on January 19, 1862, the retreating army left scores of wounded behind, and this house, like most in Mill Springs, became a temporary hospital, with wounded filling the house and yard, many remaining for weeks, and some buried in the family cemetery.