Confederate Men's Home

Funding the home leaned on the public and on women's clubs. In December 1886 the Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy held a Grand Gift Concert and Lottery that raised over $10,800, and the state took over in 1891. The residents were men who had fought for the Confederacy: 312 lived there in 1929, eighty in 1936, thirty-eight in 1938 at an average age of ninety-three, and six in 1943. Thomas Riddle, the last, died in 1954 at 108. The buildings were razed in 1970 for university married-student housing.

What the plaque says

Confederate Men's Home The Confederate men's home began in 1884 as a project of the John B. Hood Camp of United Confederate Veterans and was intended as a residence for disabled and indigent Confederate veterans. Potential residents were required to prove that they had served honorably in the Civil War, that they had a disability that prevented them from supporting themselves, and that they did not suffer from any contagious diseases. The Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy led fundraising efforts for the home. In 1886, the John B. Hood Camp purchased sixteen acres with a two-story building at 1600 West Sixth Street, and the Confederate Men's Home opened later that year. The home was operated by the Veterans' Camp with funding from public contributions until 1891, when oversight was assumed by the state of Texas. The State Legislature established the Board of Control to operate the home in 1920, and then in 1949, responsibility was transferred to the Board for Texas State Hospitals and Special Schools. The site eventually grew to twenty-six acres and included a large administration building, living quarters, a hospital and private cottages. From the time of its inception until the death of the last resident veteran in 1954, more than 2,000 Confederate veterans were admitted to the home. During the mid-twentieth century, the scope of the home shifted to include disabled veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I, as well as mental health patients. The home operated until 1963, when residents were transferred to Kerrville, and the site's buildings were razed in 1970. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Barton Springs Pool — 0.9 mi
  A three-acre pool in the bed of Barton Creek, fed by the fourth-largest spring in Texas at 68 to 70 degrees, and shared with an endangered salamander found almost nowhere else.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.4 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Harry Ransom Center — 1.5 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 1.5 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.

More markers nearby

• Austin High School — 0.2 mi
• Clarksville — 0.4 mi
• Travis County — 0.4 mi
• Deep Eddy Bathing Beach — 0.5 mi