Confederate Men's Home
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1884, John B. Hood Camp of United Confederate Veterans launched a home in Austin for aging, disabled, and destitute Confederate soldiers, aided by fundraising from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Opened at 1600 West Sixth Street in 1886, the home grew from sixteen to twenty-six acres and passed to state control by 1891. More than 2,000 veterans lived here until the last resident died in 1954, and the buildings were razed in 1970.
Why it matters
The home reflects how the postwar South cared for its Civil War generation into the twentieth century, a chapter of memory, aging, and public welfare that outlasted the war by nearly a century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the 1880s, the Civil War was two decades gone, but its human cost was still walking the streets of the South. The soldiers who had marched off young were now middle-aged, and many carried wounds, illnesses, and poverty that made it hard to support themselves. Across the former Confederacy, communities wrestled with a hard question: what was owed to the aging men who had fought, and who would provide it?
This was the era historians call Reconstruction's aftermath and the Gilded Age — a time before any broad public safety net, when care for the old and disabled fell to families, churches, and private charity. Veterans' organizations rose to fill the gap. In the North, the Grand Army of the Republic did this work; in the South, the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy took it up.
Austin, as the state capital, was a natural home for an institution meant to serve veterans from across Texas, and the state's growing willingness to fund such a home reflected a broader shift toward public responsibility for social welfare.
People & events
The effort began in 1884 as a project of the John B. Hood Camp of United Confederate Veterans — named for the general who had led Texas troops — to create a residence for disabled and indigent Confederate veterans. Admission was not automatic: a man had to prove he had served honorably, that a disability kept him from supporting himself, and that he carried no contagious disease.
The Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy led the fundraising, part of the extensive charitable and memorial work that women's organizations undertook in these decades. In 1886 the Hood Camp bought sixteen acres with a two-story building at 1600 West Sixth Street, and the home opened later that year, run by the veterans' camp on public donations.
In 1891 the state of Texas took over its operation, and the institution grew and changed with the century — a Board of Control assumed management in 1920, and oversight passed to the state hospitals board in 1949. The grounds eventually spread to twenty-six acres with an administration building, living quarters, a hospital, and private cottages. More than 2,000 Confederate veterans were admitted over the years. As their generation died away, the home broadened to shelter veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I and mental health patients, until the last resident Confederate veteran died in 1954. The home closed in 1963, its remaining residents moved to Kerrville, and its buildings were razed in 1970.
Its place in the American story
The Confederate Men's Home belongs to a national story of how America chose to care for its Civil War generation — a story that played out on both sides of the old divide. State-supported soldiers' homes, North and South, were among the first large public commitments to the long-term care of the disabled and elderly, quiet forerunners of the veterans' benefits and social welfare systems that would come in the twentieth century.
Its long life is itself striking: an institution born of a war that ended in 1865 was still operating in 1963, and its last Civil War veteran lived until 1954. That span is a vivid measure of how a great national trauma echoes across generations, in living memory, long after the fighting stops.
The home also reflects the postwar culture of Confederate memory, in which veterans' camps and the United Daughters of the Confederacy shaped how the war was remembered as they cared for those who had fought it — a history that Americans continue to study and reckon with today.
If you visit
There is no building left to see — the home's structures were razed in 1970 — so this is a marker that asks for imagination rather than sightseeing. Standing near the West Sixth Street site, picture twenty-six acres of grounds, cottages, and a hospital where old soldiers lived out their last decades.
Let the dates do their work as you read. A man admitted here might have been born before the war, fought as a teenager, and lived on into the age of automobiles and radio; the home's story stretches from 1884 to 1963. That long reach is the thing to carry away.
As a stop on a tour of Austin's layered past, the marker pairs naturally with the city's other capital-era history. Come to reflect on memory, aging, and how a society tends to the survivors of its wars, long after the war itself has passed into history.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John B. Hood
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