Oteen Veterans Administration Hospital Historic District
Asheville has long been known as a health retreat, beginning first with American Indians who set this region aside as a place to bring their sick and ailing. Dr. Z. P. Gruner opened the country's first private sanitarium in Asheville in 1875. In 1918, US Army General Hospital No. 19 opened in Asheville to serve the soldiers in the area who were training for duty for the First World War. When the U.S. Veterans' Bureau was created three years later, the hospital became part of that system, and part of the Veterans' Administration (VA) when it was organized and replaced the Bureau in 1930. New frame Colonial Revival and stucco Georgian Revival buildings were built for the Oteen Veteran's Administration Hospital from 1924 to 1932, replacing the previous wooden hospital buildings. The Asheville Citizen-Times remarked on this construction with a headline on September 10, 1928, that read "Oteen Growing Beautiful With New Buildings." According to Colonel Henry Hoagland, he suggested the name Oteen as it was an American Indian word meaning "chief aim" and it was the chief aim of every patient to get well. The hospital's primary focus was the treatment of tuberculosis, and it was the only VA hospital in the southeast devoted to the treatment of respiratory ailments.
A total of eighteen buildings were constructed from 1924 to 1932, including an administration building, wards A, B, C, D, E and F, a kitchen and dining hall, four officers' quarters, two staff apartments, two nurses dormitories, and attendants' quarters for African Americans. Semi-subterranean corridors were built connecting wards D, F and E. Several smaller utilitarian buildings were also built including a power plant and a laundry. Today, thirteen major buildings remain. Unfortunately, the new hospital and buildings obscure the planned landscaping, which was such a primary focus in 1924. The hospital remains a part of the VA system today.
Information and photos courtesy of the National Register for Historic Places Asheville, NC Travel Itinerary, a subsidiary of the National Park Service.
