Eden Animal Haven began in 2010 when Leslie Sawyer and Bill Stoll took up residence on a piece of land owned by a psychologist and his wife who wanted it used for animal welfare. While living in a small house on the land, Leslie and Bill converted a barn on the property into a temporary cat sanctuary to address a pronounced need for cat rescue efforts in the Springfield area.

Eden formed a board and became a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation in December 2013, and received their animal shelter license from the Missouri Department of Agriculture in June 2016.

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In May 2017, Eden began construction on a state-of-the-art, cage-free cat building on the property, modeled after Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah. The new shelter building currently houses about 80 cats at a time. Our goal for the future include finishing the quarantine area for cats with infectious diseases, and we are currently in the process of adding catios to the larger community rooms.