The historic site preserves and interprets the boyhood home and the one-room Prairie Mound School at which he taught for a year before attending West Point Military Academy.

[7] The Pershing home was acquired by the state of Missouri in 1952 when it was learned the owner at that time was intending to raze the building.

[6] On September 13, 1960, as part of a national centennial celebration of Pershing's birth, the home was officially dedicated in his memory and the soldiers who served under him.

[7] The home features period-specific furniture from the mid- and late-1800s as well as a small museum chronicling the life of Pershing.

The garden features a Wall of Honor with the names of war veterans as well as a life-size statue of Pershing (pictured at right) created in the 1950s by sculptor Carl Mose.