In 1951 the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foundation purchased the 37 acres of Bloody Hill with funds raised mostly by area schoolchildren. Several attempts were made to gain National Park status. With the financial assistance of the Missouri Legislature, the Foundation was able to obtain 1,700 additional acres, and Wilson's Creek National Battlefield was dedicated on August 10, 1961, the one hundredth anniversary of the battle.

The park, which hosts over 200,000 visitors annually, is considered to be one of the three best preserved and most pristine Civil War battlefields in the National Park System. While many come to enjoy the natural setting, growing numbers of guests come to the park for study and research. Each year more than 8,000 area school children visit this historic site to learn more about the events of the battle, the soldiers who fought and died here, and their heritage as Americans.

With the more than 6,000 volumes that make up the John K. and Ruth L. Hulston Library, the library at the Wilson's Creek Visitor Center has grown to be among the largest in the National Park System. Housed in the newly completed Civil War Research Library and Education Center annex, its books, diaries, maps and journals contain a wealth of historical information for research scholars, genealogists, and generations to come who will want to know more about this defining event that shaped U.S. history, particularly the war in the west.