Dayton VA Medical Center

The Dayton Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center was established by Congressional legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1865. One of the three original VA Hospitals in the United States, Dayton received its first Civil War Veterans in 1867. Although officially The Central Branch of the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, the facility became known as Dayton Soldiers Home. By 1884, it was a self-sufficient planned community, providing hospital, living quarters, gardens, and amenities to 64 percent of the Veterans receiving institutional care from the U.S. government. An early tourist attraction, the campus boasted 517,106 visitors in 1906. Today, the Dayton VA Medical Center is a modern healthcare facility that continues to honor President Lincoln’s promise “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”

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