Mountain Home

Mountain Home is the old name for the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center (State of Franklin Street, 423/926-1171, www.va.gov/621quillen) in Johnson City. Seldom listed in tourist promotions, it is both a beautiful place to visit as well as an interesting look at how medical treatment has changed over the years.

Founded in 1903 as an old soldiers' home for Union Civil War and Spanish-American War disabled veterans, Mountain Home was a self-contained community on 450 acres. The entire campus was designed in the Beaux Arts style, and the original buildings were constructed in 1901-05. In its heyday, Mountain Home consisted of a large farm, dairy, power plant, and its own fire department. Andrew Carnegie gave $15,000 for a library, and a theater was built to provide entertainment. Here the veterans lived out their lives in "companies" complete with captains and sergeants. When they died, they were buried in a landscaped cemetery that now holds 9,300 graves.

After World War I, Mountain Home changed from a soldiers' home to the National Sanitorium, a 1,000-bed hospital for disabled vets and those suffering from tuberculosis. The buildings were altered to provide "sleeping porches" in keeping with that era's treatments. When the Veterans Administration (VA) came into being in 1930, Mountain Home became a part of it, with patients filling 2,000 beds in the "doms," or domicilaries, and 605 beds in the hospital.

After World War II, the VA began putting its hospitals near medical schools in urban centers. Mountain Home languished during those years, but when ETSU landed a new medical school, Mountain Home had a renewed life.

Instead of taking veterans in and keeping them for life, the goal of the center shifted to helping them live at their own homes while providing care for those who need it. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as it is now called, now provides inpatient and outpatient medical care for thousands of veterans.

Visitors are welcome to the grounds at Mountain Home. The turn-of-the-20th-century buildings are well-maintained, and guests should look for the chapel and the theater. To get to Mountain Home, find State of Franklin Street, where the entrance is clearly marked.

Most of the Beaux Arts buildings are not open for visitors. Building 34, however, contains the Mountain Home Museum in what was the mess hall for the patients. This 9,000 square-foot museum contains perhaps the largest collection of medical exhibits in the state: Civil War physician kits, an iron lung, and various medical apparatuses. Baby boomers will smile on seeing one of those x-ray machines that enabled shoe store clerks to check the fitting of new shoes, while zapping the customer and the clerk with radiation.

The Museum, for now, is just open six hours per week: Tuesday 9 a.m. - 11, Wednesday 1:30 p.m. - 3:30, and Thursday 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. Admission is free. For more information, go to Mountain Home Museum.