This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
This image is included in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a digital collection which provides documentation about the architectural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
National Register of Historic Places (Listed, 2012), The Soldiers’ Hospital, built in 1917, is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places on a statewide level for its unique association with the development of Oregon’s health care system for aged and disabled volunteer war veterans. The Colonial Revival style hospital is also eligible under Criterion C, Architecture, as a good representative example of a hospital design that incorporated modern philosophies of health care into the pavilion plan. The Period of Significance under Criterion A begins in 1917 with the construction of the hospital and ends in 1933 when the building ceased being used as a veterans’ hospital. The Period of significance under Criterion C is 1917, the date that the building was completed and the architect’s plan was realized. Criterion A: Health/Medicine The Soldiers’ Hospital is historically significant for its unique association with the early statewide development of a comprehensive health care system for aging and disabled Oregon volunteer veterans. With some funding from the federal government, the state took on a long-standing financial commitment to construct and maintain hospital facilities at the Oregon State Soldiers’ Home (Soldiers’ Home). The state’s financial support of this institution was both more consistent and, per capita, out of proportion to state expenditures on other public health and rehabilitation facilities. The new Soldiers’ Hospital of 1917 shows the state’s commitment to the well being of the veterans. With the support of the City of Roseburg, and groups like the Grand Army of the Republic and the Women’s Relief Organization, the Soldiers’ Hospital became the primary health care facility in Oregon for volunteer veterans of the Civil War, Indian wars, Spanish-American War, and World War I. The Soldiers’ Hospital served the needs of volunteer veterans for over 15 years, from 1917 to 1933, when the Veteran Administration (VA) completed a new hospital in Roseburg, and moved the patients to the new facility. Criterion C: Architecture The Soldiers’ Hospital, designed in the Colonial Revival style, is significant as a unique example of a twentieth-century hospital designed in a modified pavilion plan, a hospital typology developed and refined in the 1800s to improve health care. The pavilion plan emphasized long, narrow buildings with wings or pavilions, rows of large windows for good ventilation and light, and different wards assigned to similar illness or injury so the staff could treat the patients more efficiently. Gardens and outdoor verandas and porches were also integral to the design so patients would have a pleasant environment. The Soldiers’ Hospital displays salient features of the pavilion concept in its long, narrow floor plan (measuring approximately 30 feet wide x 120 feet long), high ceilings, colonnades of windows across all facades to maximize illumination and ventilation, and separate wards in the center and end wings. The brick building was constructed of fireproof material, a twentieth-century concept in hospital design. The Soldiers’ Hospital retains integrity of location, workmanship, association, feeling, materials, setting, and design on the exterior, and retains sufficient integrity on the interior to reflect the historic function and original floor plan. The Soldiers’ Hospital is the only example of a state-built, -owned, and -operated veterans’ hospital in Oregon.
