Fayetteville Veterans Administration Hospital

In the 1930s, a Veterans Administration (VA) subcommittee visited more than 30 North Carolina cities in a study of possible sites for a new veterans hospital. Influenced in part by the proximity of Fort Bragg, the subcommittee recommended that the new hospital be located in Fayetteville. On July 8, 1938, Brigadier General Frank T. Hines, Administrator of Veterans Affairs, officially announced President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approval of the subcommittee’s recommendation.

Several potential sites in the Fayetteville vicinity were inspected by Charles H. Stratton, consulting engineer for the VA,49 and on October 21, 1938, the Federal Board of Hospitalization accepted a 145-acre tract for the hospital reservation, located approximately 2 miles north of downtown Fayetteville on the west bank of the Cape Fear River. The parcel was once part of the Myrtle Hill plantation, the country home of Fayetteville lawyer and the United States Senator Robert Strange. Cumberland County deed records indicate that Alexander E. and Frances W. Cook conveyed the property to the United States of America on December 31, 1938.

The general contract for the construction of the hospital was awarded to N.P. Severin and Company of Chicago in the amount of $1,020,000. Construction began in May 1939," and the completed facility was turned over to the VA on September 1, 1940.2 At that time, the campus was comprised of ten buildings, including the main building, service building, nurses' quarters, manager's residence, medical officers' quarters, garage, laundry building, and boiler house. The total cost of these buildings and the fixed equipment contained therein was approximately $1,300,000. Though the original buildings were built according to standardized designs, stylistic elements of Fayetteville's Old Market House, including its cupola and arches, were incorporated into the architecture of the main building.

The new facility was dedicated on October 17, 1940, with a keynote address delivered by Colonel George E. Ijams, assistant Administrator of Veterans Affairs. Combined with the 307-bed general medical and surgical hospital on the Fayetteville campus were the regional offices of the VA, which had previously been located in Charlotte." James S. Pittman of the Charlotte VA was appointed as the first manager of the combined facility.

The hospital began receiving patients on November 22, 1940, the first of whom was Virginia native Aubum Frank Salley, a veteran of the Philippine-American War. More than 2,100 veterans were admitted to the hospital in its first year of operation, requiring the services of fifteen physicians, two dentists, a pharmacist, eight subprofessional personnel, forty-five nurses, and fifty-one attendants.
In March 1946, the regional offices of the VA were relocated from the Fayetteville facility to Winston-Salem. Two months later, President Harry S. Truman authorized an expansion of the hospital to accommodate veterans of the recently concluded Second World War and an aging population of World War I veterans. The addition was completed the following year and increased the patient capacity of the hospital to 416 beds.

During the 1950s, the federal government initiated a campaign to divest itself of excess property. On November 24, 1954, 57.8 acres of the Fayetteville reservation was conveyed to Cumberland County without remuneration.

Over the last 50 years, a number of changes have taken place on the Fayetteville campus. A thirty-nine-bed nursing home unit was opened in an existing wing of the hospital on June 15, 1965. In 1977, a 10,000-square-foot warehouse with space for expansion of patient care services was constructed. This expansion appears to be the single-story, flat-roof addition on the southeast elevation of the original portion of the service building. A new $10.3 million, 87,000 square foot clinical addition containing surgical, laboratory, and pharmaceutical facilities were dedicated on April 4, 1988. This is the addition to the southwest elevation of the original portion of the main building. In August 1988, a twenty-five-bed alcohol dependence treatment unit was opened at the hospital. A 40-foot carillon bell tower, donated by American Veterans (AMVETS) at an approximate cost of $50,000, was dedicated on April 17, 1993. This carillon bell tower is located within the historic district, to the west-southwest of the main building. Finally, the first North Carolina State Veterans Home, located adjacent to the veterans medical center on acreage previously included within its reservation, was dedicated in April 1999. The North Carolina State Veterans Home is located to the east-northeast of the current Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center property and outside the boundary of the historic district.

Located on the medical center property is a line of earthen fortifications erected by Confederate forces in 1865. The breastworks were hastily constructed in order to defend the Confederate arsenal at Fayetteville from Federal forces under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. On March 11, 1865, Sherman's troops entered Fayetteville from the south, rather than from the north as anticipated, thereby rendering the breastworks useless as a means of defense. Federal forces laid waste to the arsenal and any other property that might be of use to the Confederacy. The fortifications were thereafter sheltered by trees and remain well preserved. The Confederate breastworks were listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 7,
1981.