A brief history of the VA

Thanks to the work of the late Elaine Brewster and her team of researchers in 2008, history of the campus has been preserved. The oldest portion of the campus is a 40-plot pioneer cemetery that dates back as early as 1815. A golf course on the campus surrounds the cemetery. Plans for future development on the campus include leaving the cemetery as is. The State Industrial Home for the Blind opened on the site on January 1, 1892. The industry in question was making brooms, and residents made an average of 550 brooms per month. The last patient left on April 30, 1900. With the facility empty, locals hoped to utilize it as a different kind of school. This was not approved. In 1902, the building was reopened as a State Hospital for Inebriates. This became official in 1904 when Iowa Governor Cummings approved an act. Males were treated in the original building from 1892, and two more built in 1905. Those two buildings are still standing. The 2008 report indicates that the facility did not last long, as the inmates were treated poorly. The addicts were not reformed and often tried to escape. Some were considered unmanageable and kept in a two-story tower. Bars were installed on the windows, inmates worked kilns and were fed only bread and water. Inmates deemed “unruly” were chained to a block of wood and forced to drag it everywhere they went. Following the closure of the hospital, the facility remained vacant until 1920. President Abraham Lincoln, six weeks before his assassination in 1865, signed legislation that created the National Home for Disabled Soldiers – a direct antecedent for the VA. By the end of World War I, the majority of disabled veterans were receiving their hospital care and treatment from the Public Health Service. The flood of new veterans from WWI intensified the pressure on the PHS. In 1919, a public law transferred a number of hospitals to PHS for use by veterans and several new hospitals were authorized. The 11,639 beds in 52 hospitals the PHS had nationwide by 1920 were still not enough to care for these vets. This led the PHS to investigate the idle plant in Knoxville. The service took over the facility and on August 21, 1920, 125 disabled veterans were brought to Knoxville. The campus had a 171-bed capacity at that time. In 1921, the Harding Administration formally formed the Department of Veterans Affairs. Col. Charles Forbes was appointed as the first director of the Veterans Bureau and was appalled at the condition of most of the hospitals treating veterans. He described them as “all fire hazards” and “wooden shacks” and kicked off a massive construction program before he resigned. But it wasn’t until June 1922 that the federal government officially purchased the Knoxville site for $200,000. At that time, the property consisted of 345 acres, five permanent brick structures, a greenhouse, numerous wood buildings and various utilities. A hospital of significant sized was announced for construction in the Missouri Valley. Knoxville pursued this contract, and eventually won it after Des Moines bowed out. In 1923, several buildings on the campus went up. Construction of these buildings was not the only challenge at the time, as the federal government worked to erase the bad memories in the minds of Knoxville residents, such as armed guards, chain gangs and solitary confinement at the Home for the Inebriates. A dairy farm, barn, vegetable gardening and other aspects of the veterans’ treatments began. The 1923 construction projects made the facility an up-to-date hospital for the treatment of psychiatric patients, Bed capacity rose to 365 in 1925. President Hoover, an Iowa native, formally created the VA by executive order on July 21, 1930. By that time, two more buildings were going up on the Knoxville campus and overall bed capacity was at 866 by September 1931. Growth continued and in 1944, bed capacity in Knoxville was at 1,631. Between 1944-49, that capacity remained, with over 1,000 employees on the rolls at the hospital. Over the years, the campus had been self-contained with its own wastewater system, electric grid, fire station, child care center and more. Most utilities that served the buildings remain self-contained, which necessitates new infrastructure being installed by the City. Despte the addition of a new educational building, fire station and laundry facility in 1996, that same year, on December 4, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown integrated the Des Moines and Knoxville VA Medical Centers. It officially became known as the VA Central Iowa Health Care System, part of the Veterans Integrated Service Network 23. During the Clinton Administration, a study was performed known as Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services, or CARES, found that inpatient services should be reduced and combined. From there, treatment at the Knoxville VA began to decrease. By the time inpatient services ended in Knoxville, the campus encapsulated 39 buildings and 163 acres. Attempts to market the facility for private development fell short. No government entities at any level were able to utilize the campus as it is, and eventually the property was turned over the General Services Agency of the federal government. Marion County reached an agreement with the GSA to purchase the campus for $1. It was announced in 2019 that the County and Knoxville would work together to demolish and redevelop the land. Demolition has begun, with the removal of a great deal of asbestos. Demolition of the campus is expected to be completed in 2022.