VA Central Office Building: A Legacy of Service to Veterans Since 1918

The Arlington Building, known today as the VA Central Office (VACO) Building, has been the central location for management of services to Veterans for over 100 years. While VA and its immediate predecessors have been the sole occupants of 810 Vermont Avenue since the building opened in the fall of 1918, the intended purpose of the completed building would change several times. The story of today’s VACO includes the origins of a new Nation and its capital, the demolition of a well-known landmark, bankruptcy, war, and a backstory of land ownership tied to one of the capital’s most prominent families.

The Origins of the VACO Building

The intersection of H Street and Vermont Avenue in Washington, D.C. has always been a highly desirable location in the capital, located across the street from Lafeyette Park and convenient to the White House just beyond since the earliest days of the Nation.

Selection of the permanent U.S. capital in 1801, originally called the “Federal city,” created a real estate boom. By mid-century, development was further facilitated by bankers like William Wilson Corcoran, who later partnered with Elisha Riggs to create the Corcoran Riggs Bank. The bank made a fortune selling Government bonds in the late 1840s. Corcoran reinvested his wealth in D.C. by collecting art, investing in property near the White House, and establishing schools, churches, charitable institutions, and an art gallery.

Despite professional success, Corcoran faced personal tragedies with the early passing of his wife and children. Heartbroken, Corcoran bought properties near the White House in 1869 to create a premier hotel, the Arlington House Hotel, which opened later that year. With profits from his new hotel, along with an endowment, he founded the Louise Home in honor of his wife and daughter, “for the maintenance and comfort of a limited number of gentlewomen who have been reduced by misfortune.” For nearly 50 years it occupied the land where VACO stands today. The old hotel was razed and demolished in 1912 so that a new $5 million hotel with modern features could be built in its place.[1] The lot was leveled and cleared by October 1912.[2]

A bigger and better hotel never materialized, though, as the investors went bankrupt. For several years a vacant lot, within easy view of the White House, was all that was left in its place.[3] In foreclosure, the lot was auctioned on January 29, 1914, to a group of investors, mostly men from Richmond, Virginia, who formed the Arlington Corporation. By the summer of 1915, talk of erecting a new hotel at the site was renewed and architectural plans were being prepared by Wyatt & Nolting of Baltimore. In the fall of 1916, bids for proposals to build a new hotel were solicited.

In the spring of 1917, just as the United States entered World War I, plans for the building changed significantly in support of the war effort. On June 20, 1917, construction commenced on an 11-story fireproof office building. Wyatt & Nolting remained as architects and, in August 1917, a drawing of the planned structure was released to the media and plans were announced for the Department of the Navy to occupy the building.

As both the war and the construction on the Arlington Building progressed, Congress passed the 1917 War Risk Insurance Act establishing a life insurance program for servicemen going off to war. The Bureau of War Risk Insurance (BWRI), a VA predecessor responsible for the program, hired thousands of new employees to process Service members’ life insurance policy claims. They desperately needed workspace and occupied the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and other temporary spaces in the capital.

It became evident that BWRI needed office space more than the Navy. In February 1918, Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo requested over $4 million to purchase the new office building to house its BWRI offices. On April 5, 1918, the Treasury Department announced the completed purchase of the Arlington Building, still under construction, for $4.2 million from the War Emergency Fund designed to support programs connected to the war.[4]

In the fall of 1918, Congress specifically appropriated over $55,000 for certain Arlington Building needs: building superintendents, engineers, elevator conductors, electricians, plumbers, painters, helpers, janitors, watchmen, water coolers, window shades, etc. This amount would provide for minimal operating and furnishings costs until the building could be fully occupied. As planned, the building consolidated the location of 18 offices of the BWRI. The Bureau staff moved into the new 11-story Arlington Building in March 1919.[5]

On August 9, 1921, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, Public Health Service Veterans’ hospitals, and the Rehabilitation Division of the Federal Board for Vocational Education were merged to form the Veterans Bureau, which was then consolidated nine years later, in July 1930, with the Pension Bureau and National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers to form the Veterans Administration (VA). 

The Modern Era

Over the decades that followed the completion of the modern building in 1918, both VA and VACO underwent organizational and building changes. One modest change to the building was applied in 1958 when VA Administrator Sumner Whittier had two plaques inscribed with an excerpt from Lincoln’s second inaugural address mounted at the building’s front entrance. Installation of central air conditioning began in the same year. In 1972, work began on the Metrorail station at the northeast corner of the building. In 1973, the National Cemetery Administration was formed, consolidating the National Cemetery System under VA. President Reagan elevated the Veterans Administration to a Cabinet-level department when he signed PL 100-527 on October 25, 1988.

Despite mergers, new names, changes in Veterans’ benefits, and fluctuations in the number of personnel, the Federal Government’s administration of services for Veterans has been conducted from the same location at the corner of H Street and Vermont Avenue continuously since 1918.

Darlene Richardson’s story was originally posted in a 2018 series celebrating the centennial of the Arlington Building and the VA Central Office. Ms. Richardson retired from Federal service in 2019. The series was edited by Michael Visconage, VA Chief Historian, to produce this article.

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[1] “Historic Hotel Has Last Guest,” Washington Herald, May 19, 1912.

[2] “Demolishing Old Hotel,” Evening Star, September 4, 1912.

[3] “Charge of ‘Fraud’ is Heard in Arlington Hotel Deal,” Washington Herald, May 24, 1913.

[4] “U.S. Buys Site of Arlington for 4 Million,” Washington Herald, April 5, 1918.

[5] “War Risk In New Home,” The Washington Post, March 16, 1919.