Oregon Historic Sites Database

Search Menu

Site Information small logo

Oregon Historic Sites Database

Scanned Document Links

Inventory Form
NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address:1624 Harvard Ave historic name:Oregon State Soldier's Home Hospital
Roseburg, Douglas County current/other names:Umpqua Valley Arts Center
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:27S 6W 23
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):1.0 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1917 second date: date indiv listed:03/07/2012
primary orig use: Hospital orig use comments:
second orig use:
primary style: Colonial Revival prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Brick:Other/Undefined siding comments:
secondary siding: Stone:Other/Undefined
plan type: architect:Lewis, Irvine & Thompson
builder:Stebinger Brothers
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Not associated with any surveys or groupings.
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 03/07/2012
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date:
106 Project(s)
SHPO Case Date Agency Effect Eval
10-0750 03/01/2010 adverse effect
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
Completed in 1917, the Oregon State Soldiers’ Home Hospital (Soldiers’ Hospital) is located at 1624 West Harvard on the north side of the street in west Roseburg, Douglas County, Oregon. Located on a 2.15-acre parcel adjacent to Fir Grove Park, the building is set back from the street with expansive lawn areas surrounding the Colonial Revival-style building. The horizontally-oriented brick building features a central, projecting full, two-story portico with gable roof, supported by six colossal fluted Ionic columns. The red brick tympanum is decorated with a central bulls-eye window. Concrete steps lead up to a centrally located entrance door that has a decorative fanlight transom and is flanked by multi-light windows capped with decorative, rectangular cast-stone panels. The one-story wings on either side of the central portico are identical in design. Regular-spaced, round-arch windows with cast-stone keystones are below the plain entablature and hip roof. The end wings, perpendicular to the elongated wings, have paired brick pilasters with cast stone bases and capitals, a Palladian style window with recessed cast-stone panels above, and a bulls-eye window in the gable end. The brick walls are laid in a common-bond pattern that extend to the beltcourse above the exposed brick foundation. Narrow side façades have elevated entrance doors and round arch windows. The rear façade is divided into five bays with projecting end and center wings. The three projecting bays have arched multi-light windows and the elongated wings have rectangular, double-hung windows. A newer entrance stairway and ADA ramp, built in the 1980s, is on the eastern side of the back facade. The original entrance in the 8,968 square foot building is blocked off, but the front door opening and receiving hall are intact. The entrance hall intersects the central east-west corridor that has a series of rooms on either side and larger rooms in the center and end wings. The corridor is finished with a decorative terrazzo floors with inlaid rose compass designs, high wood baseboards, plaster walls finished with a picture rail, and high ceilings. Large windows illuminate each room. The staircase near the north side entrance, leads to the second floor that is in the upper area of the portico. The second floor has a central east-west corridor that terminates at doors that lead to the unfinished attic spaces. The hall has original tongue-and-groove wood floors, plaster walls finished with a picture rail, and small rooms on either side of the hall that have simple built-in closets and the same detailing as the hallway. A partial concrete basement is under the central portion of the former hospital.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Soldiers’ Hospital, built in 1917, is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places on a statewide level under Criterion A, Healthcare and Medicine, 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.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society:Oregon Historical Society Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Adams, Annmarie. Medicine by Design: The Architecture and the Modern Hospital, 1893-1943. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Applen, J.A. “Cultural Resource Inventory, Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, Roseburg, Oregon.” July 7, 2009. Beath, Robert B. The Grand Army Blue-Book. Philadelphia: Burk & McFetridge Printers, 1886. “Biennial Reports of the Oregon State Board of Control.” Biennial Reports, 1915, 1917, 1919, 1921, and 1923. Salem, OR: State Printing Department. Special Collections, University of Oregon Library. Douglas County Historical Society. Vertical and photographic files on the Old Soldiers’ Home. Douglas County Historical Museum, Roseburg, Oregon. Grand Army of the Republic. Department of Oregon Women’s Relief Corps, Meade Corps. No. 18, 5 folders, Special Collections, University of Oregon Library. Harshman, Marissa. “Roseburg VA Celebrates 75 Years of Service.” Veterans Affairs Roseburg Healthcare System public service announcement, 2011. “Index to Title Documents: Veterans Administration Hospital Reservation,” Roseburg, Oregon. On-file in the archives of the Roseburg Veteran’s Medical Center, Roseburg, Oregon. Julin, Suzanne. “National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers: Assessment of Significance and National Historic Landmark Recommendations.” National Park Service and VA Administration, Draft, 2005. Oregon Historical Society. Research library. Vertical files: Roseburg, Oregon and Photographic Collection: Building-Government. Portland, Oregon. Oregon Soldiers Home. Joint Committee to Investigate Report 1895. Joint Concurrent Report #3. Legislative Assembly, 16th Regular Session. Salem, OR: W.H. Leeds, State Printer, 1895. Oregon State Congress. House. An Act to Establish the Oregon Soldiers’’ Home, and to Make an Appropriation Therefore. H.B. 121. 17th session. Laws of Oregon, 1893. Frank C. Baker, State Printer, Salem Oregon, January 9, 1893. Oregonian. “Work is About to Start on New State Hospital for Soldiers at Roseburg,” April 29, 1917; “Rigid Discipline Gives Way to Golden Rule at Soldiers’ Home at Roseburg,” August 12, 1917; “Lewis Irvine Thompson,” January 16, 1930 (obit); “Delay Up For Use of Soldiers Home,” May 9, 1933. Plante, Treveor K. Genealogy Notes: The Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Spring 2004, Vol. 36, No.1. Rogers Engineering, Architectural Floor Plans and Elevation Drawings, Roseburg, Oregon, May 11, 2011. “Report of the Board of Trustees Oregon Soldiers, Home to the Governor of Oregon, Organization to December 1894.” Salem, OR: Frank C. Baker, State Printer, 1894. Special Collections, Oregon State Library. Roseburg Cultural and Historical Resource Inventory. Oregon State Soldiers’ Home Hospital. Recorded by Terry Harbour, March 1983. Roseburg Review. “Hospital Bids are Considered,” April 24, 1917; “Local Builders Given Contract,” April 30, 1917; “Commandant of Soldiers Home was Severely Reprimanded,” September 30, 1917; Roseburg News-Review. Roseburg Wins Home,” September 8, 1931; “Veterans’ Homes are Merged,” May 8, 1933; “New Soldiers’ Home Will Open Monday,” September 12, 1930. State of Washington. A Comprehensive History of the Washington Soldiers’ Home and Colony, Centennial Edition, 1891-1991.” State of Washington 1991. The News Review. “ The Viewfinder.” June 28, 1980; “VA Medical Center 50 Years Old Today,” May 6, 1983. The Umpqua Trapper. “The Old Soldiers’ Home.” Spring, 2001, Volume XXXVII. Roseburg: Douglas County Historical Society, 2001. Umpqua Valley Arts Association. History of the UVAA Building at Umpqua Valley Arts Association. On-line resource. US Military Old Soldiers Home Records. “History of Old Soldiers and Sailors Homes.” Veteran Administration. “50th Anniversary Medical Center, Roseburg, Oregon, 1933 – 1983.” Pamphlet on file at the Douglas County Historical Society archive vertical files, Roseburg, Oregon.