In April 1862, General Grant's troops landed at Milliken's Bend before the siege of Vicksburg and occupied the Sparta Plantation.

During the course of the siege, Union forces confiscated the Hermione House, on the Kell Plantation, for use as a federal hospital.

Unlike many other houses in the area, it was not destroyed by Grant during the Vicksburg Campaign because it was being used as a Union hospital.

Among the museum's exhibits is one devoted to Madam C. J. Walker, born free soon after the war as Sarah Breedlove near Delta, Louisiana.

[2] The house was originally listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 17, 1988, at its former location on the Kell plantation.