The stately brick building on Harvard Avenue that houses the Umpqua Valley Arts Center served a different clientele when it was built in 1917.

Instead of art admirers and art students, the brightly lit rooms housed sick and injured veterans of the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish American War and World War I.

From 1917 to 1933, the building, which the city of Roseburg owns and the Umpqua Valley Arts Association rents, was a state-run veterans' hospital.

Once known as the Oregon State Soldiers' Home Hospital, the building could become part of the National Register of Historic Places. Roseburg plans to apply to the National Park Service to have the building recognized as a historic landmark.

Along with ensuring its preservation, induction into the national register will qualify the city for state and federal restoration grants, Senior Planner Marion Thompson said.

A $3,500 state grant paid for a consultant to research the building's history and prepare the application.

Ian Johnson, a historian with the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, said the building illustrates Roseburg's long history of veterans' health care and is an excellent candidate for the national register.

“I think it's a very unique building,” he said. “It's also very reflective of hospital design at the time.”

Umpqua Valley Arts Center Gallery Manager Aleta McGee said she had been asked so many times about the building that she researched its history. She said she was fascinated by what she found out.

“I just thought the whole history of it was so neat,” she said.

Health care for veterans originated in Douglas County in 1856, when a building at Fort Umpqua served as a hospital and billiards hall until the outpost was abandoned in 1861.

In 1893, the state authorized the construction of the Oregon State Soldiers' Home on Harvard Avenue to treat veterans of the Indian Wars. These were men who were not eligible for federal pensions.

The home was dedicated Sept. 28, 1896, and quickly filled to its maximum capacity of 60 people. Administrators would later push for another building to cope with overcrowding.

A second soldiers home, the current arts center building, was built in 1917 for $22,500 on the same grounds. Between 1917 and 1918, 172 veterans were admitted, mostly from the Civil War era.

By the 1920s, the soldiers home complex included an administration building, barracks, a central heating plant, a mess hall, laundry, garage, cottages for married veterans, a greenhouse, pig pens, barns and a veterans' cemetery.

The arts center's ceramic studio was once the central heating plant, McGee said. The Betty Long Unruh Theatre also was once part of the soldiers home complex, she said.

During its heyday, the home was famous for its gardens, where there are now soccer fields. The home's gardeners pioneered drip irrigation, McGee said. The 25-acre gardens produced fresh produce for the residents and patients at the soldiers home. Surplus produce was sold to operate and maintain the home.

“People came from all over to view those gardens,” McGee said.

At the onset of the Great Depression, civic leaders in Roseburg sought ways to stimulate the economy. With assistance from the state's congressional delegation, they began a bid for Roseburg to be the site of a federal veterans hospital.

“They were visionaries,” McGee said.

In September 1931, the federal government recommended building a veterans hospital in Roseburg. The town was overjoyed. Residents set off firecrackers and noisemakers and danced through the streets. An estimated 10,000 people gathered to celebrate with dances, a parade, banquets and sporting events.

The 40 acres held by the Oregon State Soldiers home were transferred to the federal government in February 1932. The city of Roseburg then purchased an additional 410 acres. In March, the land was deeded to the federal government.

In 1932, work on what is now the Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center began. In May 1933, the first 69 veterans were moved from the soldiers home to the new hospital.

After the new hospital was built, the VA used the old state soldiers home for offices and to house some of its employees. During World War II, portions of the building were taken over by different branches of the military and local reserves. In the mid-1950s, the building housed male attendants for the VA hospital. A portion was used the U.S. Naval Reserve and the rest was leased to VA employees for a dollar a year.

In the late 1950s, the VA gave parcels to the city for the development of Stewart and Gaddis parks. In 1966, a bill was passed in the Oregon Legislature that stipulated that the soldiers home and the surrounding land be deeded to the city for parks.

The Umpqua Valley Arts Association has leased the building from the city since 1979.

Johnson said the building's colonial revival style architecture is worth preserving. The arts center's large windows are an example of preferences for natural light and air circulation, often seen in hospitals built at that time.

But the windows also made it a challenge to show art, McGee said. She said she's often had to block them so the sun doesn't fade out the artwork. Still, McGee said she makes do.

“Sometimes the architecture is so beautiful that it actually competes with the art,” she said.

• You can reach reporter Inka Bajandas at 541-957-4202 or by email at ibajandas@nrtoday.com.