Like the nearby Brotherton and Snodgrass farmhouses, the Kelly House is an historically accurate reconstruction of a typical single-pen dwelling of the era. It has been an integral part of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park since its inception in 1890.

In their Historic Resource Survey (1999) of the park, Hanson & Blythe note: The Kelly House was a landmark for Union forces moving to extend Gen. Rosecrans’s left on September 18 and 19. The Union left dug in around the Kelly Farm at the north end of the Chickamauga battlefield and repulsed repeated Confederate assaults. [It also] served as [a] field hospital [like other cabins throughout the area] during and after the Battle of Chickamauga.

Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park + National Register of Historic Places