Today, we feature the marker at the Dayton VA Medical Center, 4100 W. Third St., about the healthcare facility.
Marker location
Marker text
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.”
The Ohio Historical Markers program
Beginning in the 1950s, the program encompasses over 1,750 unique markers that tell the state’s history as written by its communities.
Reading a marker
In addition to the text describing the historic marker, in the lower right is a number. This indicates the sequence number of the sign installed in a particular county.
Example above
Marker No. 35-57. The 35 indicates that this particular marker is the 35th marker to be erected in the county and 57 indicates that the marker is located in Montgomery County.
More information about markers
You can find information about all of Ohio’s historical markers at the Remarkable Ohio website.