The Grand Army Home was established in 1887 by the Wisconsin Department of the Grand Army of the Republic, a nationwide organization of Union veterans of the Civil War (1861-1865). It provided care for indigent veterans and their wives in a pleasant community setting. The city of Waupaca donated seventy-eight acres along Rainbow Lake, and the local branch of the Women's Relief Corps, an auxiliary of the G.A.R., constructed several cottages on the site. It was the first veterans' home in the nation to allow women to become members. Dr. Frederick A. Marden, a G.A.R. member from Milwaukee, originated the concept of a co-educational veterans' retirement community and devised the cottage plan, believing that elderly soldiers and their wives were owed a debt of gratitude for their service to the imperiled Union and would find contentment in the modest cottages and tree-shaded lanes at King.