Veterans Administration

VA manages more than 1,700 historic properties, but none older than the Grist Mill and Mansion House on the campus of the Perry Point VA Medical Center in Maryland.

On July 21, 1930, President Herbert C. Hoover signed Executive Order 5398 establishing the Veterans’ Administration (VA), the forerunner of today’s Department of Veterans Affairs. Soon Adminstrator Frank Hines had created a new Veterans' Administration seal to go with the new agency.

On January 3, 1946, President Harry Truman established the forerunner of today’s Veterans Health Administration when he signed Public Law 79-293, creating the Department of Medicine and Surgery within the Veterans Administration.

The present-day Bob Stump VA Medical Center campus in Prescott, Arizona has had a long and interesting history from the time the Arizona Territory was created in 1863. Established as Fort Whipple, the facility transitioned over many years to an eventual VA Medical Center campus.

As another Thanksgiving is upon us, thoughts turn towards the traditions that surround the holiday, many of them involving food. At the National VA History Center Archives, staff members went looking to see what past Thanksgivings looked like and were rewarded with positive results.

On September 1, 1973, the Veterans Administration (VA) became the steward of 103 national cemeteries, 22 soldiers’ and government lots in private cemeteries, 7 Confederate cemeteries, and 3 monument sites with the absorption of the National Cemetery System. It also took responsibility for the procurement of government headstones and markers for eligible veterans. VA was now in the cemetery service.

Soon after World War II concluded, Gen. Omar Bradley, fresh off relinquishng command of the U.S. Army's Twelfth Army Group, was given a critical mission back stateside - take charge of the Veterans Adminsitration and prepare to support the millions of Veterans coming back home.

Dr. Andrew Schally was born in Poland, and through early struggles under German occupation during World War II, started a journey as a medical researcher that would take him to VA and groundbreaking research on hormones. In this feature by VA History intern Parker Beverly, follow along Dr. Schally's career as his medical research was recognized in 1977 with the Nobel Prize.

On July 21, 1930, President Hoover signed Executive Order 5398 and the Veterans Administration, more commonly called VA, was created. It would replace the Veterans Bureau and changed how the federal government managed the growing Veteran benefit system.