05/26/2026
in 1903, the Montgomery Advertiser shared an article pertaining to a recent visit to the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home. From this article, we learn that the auditorium in Memorial Hall was be named for Bob Taylor, former governor of Tennessee, who gave a lecture in the Montgomery Auditorium to raise funds for the Soldiers' Home. In total, over 500 logs would be sponsored to help complete the construction of Memorial Hall, and this article informs us that Falkner would soon be reaching out to individual United Confederate Veteran camps to help fill the gap. The writer also tells us of his amusement at what a 'lawyer farmer" could do and describes Falkner's farm with "6,000 peach trees, acres upon acres of grapes, scuppernong arbors, Japanese plums, mulberries...ducks, chickens, geese, and guineas." Towards the end, we also learn that the first cemetery had one grave and was called "Soldiers' Rest."
Image courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History.
https://digital.archives.alabama.gov/.../photo/id/5790/rec/2