The Confederate Home
This Pewee Valley home for Confederate veterans did not really play role in the Little Colonel stories, but was mentioned as something that could be seen nearby. For example, in the Little Colonel at Boarding School, Chapter 5, it was described as “the big inn that the year before had been turned into a home for Confederate soldiers.”
Originally the Villa Ridge Inn, it served for a short time as the successor to the Kentucky College for Young Ladies (model for Lloydsboro Seminary) before being purchased by the state for a home for Confederate veterans in 1902. Fannie Craig (Miss Allison of the stories) also had her school here for awhile before moving it to a building behind Edgewood. A fire eventually destroyed the main part of the Villa Ridge Inn/Confederate Home and the rest has since been razed.
The Confederate Home was located on the land just adjacent to the old Presbyterian Church.
View before 1909
The only vestiges of the Confederate Home remaining in Pewee Valley include the original sign at the front gate (shown in the 1936 Herald-Post photo below), now at the entrance to the Confederate portion of the Pewee Valley Cemetery, and the remnants of the old walkway that led from the home to the railroad tracks, marked by a small sign placed there by the 21st Century Confederate Legion. A reservoir that once supplied the home with fresh water was filled in during the 1990s, but is visible on this topographic map from 1993. Thanks to Eric Henderson, former Pewee resident and L&N model railroader, for that tip. For a more thorough history of the Confederate Home, visit the John Hunt Morgan website http://johnhuntmorgan.scv.org/confhome.htm.
A goateed patient at the gate of the Kentucky Confederate Home, 1936,
from the Herald-Post photographs collection, ca. 1920-1936
klgsc:klgsculrsc021:94.18.0358.
Click here for views of the Confederate Home site today