Sawtelle Veterans Home
The Sawtelle Veterans Home was a care home for disabled American veterans in what is today part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area (see Sawtelle, Los Angeles) in California in the United States. The Home, formally the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, was established in 1887 on 300 acres (1.2 km2) of Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica lands donated by Senator John P. Jones and Arcadia B. de Baker. The following year, the site grew by an additional 200 acres (0.81 km2); in 1890, 20 acres (0.081 km2) more were appended for use as a veterans' cemetery. With more than 1,000 veterans in residence, a new hospital was erected in 1900. This hospital was replaced in 1927 by the Wadsworth Hospital, now known as the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.
In 1865, Congress passed legislation to incorporate the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and Sailors of the Civil War. Volunteers were not eligible for care in the existing regular army and navy home facilities. This legislation, one of the last Acts signed by President Lincoln, marked the entrance of the United States into the direct provision of care for the temporary versus career military. The Asylum was renamed the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS) in 1873. It was also known colloquially as the Old Soldiers Home. Between 1867 and 1929, the Home expanded to ten branches and one sanatorium.
The Board of Managers were empowered to establish the Home at such locations as they deemed appropriate and to establish those programs that they determined necessary. The Home was a unique creation of the Congress. While the Managers included, ex-officio, the President of the United States, the Secretary of War and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, it was not a part of the Executive branch of government. Its budget requests in later years were submitted in conjunction with the War Department. But throughout its existence, until 1930, the Board of Managers consistently defended its independence of the Executive Branch.
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