Veterans Bureau

After the United States entered World War I in 1917, the government hastily built new facilities both to train Army medical personnel and to provide care for soldiers wounded during the fighting or stricken with disease. Oteen Veterans' Hospital was one of these.

In the space of just a few years following World War I, the U.S. government created an expansive health system for ex-servicemembers under the direction of a new and independent federal agency, the Veterans’ Bureau. A medical bulletin was soon published monthly featuring articles from the healthcare staff.

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.

To accommodate the growing number of African American Veterans in the south following World War I, the Veterans Bureau opened the Tuskegee Veterans Hospital in 1923 reserved exclusively for their use. Originally called the “Hospital for Sick and Injured Colored World War Veterans,” the installation was staffed entirely by Black doctors and nurses.

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.

President Warren G. Harding made a commitment to streamline and improve benefit services for the millions of World War I Veterans in the U.S. In August of 1921, he signed the bill creating the Veterans Bureau, the first independent federal agency to manage all facets of Veterans care. The legacy of the Veterans Bureau lives on in the modern VA, which continues its forerunner’s tradition of service to Veterans and their dependents.