Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Trail contact: Confederate Memorial Park, 437 CR 63, Marbury, AL 36051; (205)
755-1990; www.preserveala.org/confederatepark.aspx
Finding the trailhead: From exit 200 on I-65, take CR 59 south 2.4 miles. Turn
right onto US 31 South. Travel 2.3 miles and turn left onto CR 23. Travel 0.7 mile
and make a right onto CR 63. The park entrance is straight ahead in 0.5 mile. The
museum and parking is on the right, just after the entrance. GPS: N32 43.122' /
W86 28.449'
The Hike
Normally when we talk about a hike through a Civil War park, we talk about the
battle that occurred there. This time, however, we're talking about a time not too
removed from the end of the war, when the veterans of the Confederate military
needed help just to survive.
Confederate Memorial Park is the former site of the Alabama Old Soldiers
Home. Following the war, several Southern states began an effort to help their vet-
erans who could not support themselves. Hundreds, if not thousands, of former
Confederate soldiers found themselves without family, jobs, money, land, or a
place to live. Many had physical disabilities and lived in poorhouses. Unlike their
Northern counterparts, who received fairly decent pensions from the federal gov-
ernment, Confederate soldiers had to rely on whatever they could to get by on.
In the late 1800s Montgomery attorney and Confederate veteran Jefferson
Manly Falkner began a crusade to do something about this situation. Donating 80
acres of his own land, Falkner set out to build the Alabama Old Soldiers Home.
Funds to construct and eventually run the facility came in from across the state,
until finally the twenty-two-building facility, complete with a twenty-five-bed
hospital, began operation in 1901. At its height, the facility housed 104 Confeder-
ate veterans and their wives. It ended operation in 1939, when the last remaining
residents, five surviving widows, were placed into the care of the state welfare de-
partment. The buildings were soon dismantled and the land all but forgotten, ex-
cept for the two cemeteries where the remains of many former residents are bur-
ied.
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