Central Arkansas had seen its veterans served since 1921 at the Fort Roots VA hospital, but in the wake of World War II, that facility lacked the capacity to serve all the veterans returning from combat around the globe.
Enter U.S. Sen. John McClellan, who in 1945 announced he had pushed through funding for a new 500-bed VA hospital to be built on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock. McClellan had a long history of supporting veterans' programs and had suffered a personal loss in war. His son Max McClellan died of spinal meningitis in 1943 while serving in Africa during World War II.
The 11-story, 400,000-square-foot hospital opened in 1948, and for more than three decades would serve veterans from across the region. The photo that accompanies this piece is from a postcard folder the hospital published around 1950 which offers a look at facilities from around the massive medical center.
By the 1980s, the WWII-era hospital was outdated, and the Veterans Administration erected a new hospital, named for Sen. John McClellan, in 1984, adjacent to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The arrangement would allow a number of physicians to serve both hospitals.
Efforts to find a use for the abandoned massive facility on Roosevelt Road have been elusive. The Little Rock Police Department has used a small portion, while Our House, a shelter for the homeless, has occupied one of the outlying buildings for a number of years.
Yet today the looming building is likely the largest vacant building in Arkansas, presenting a number of maintenance challenges. Realtors' efforts to market sale of the building have failed to find any buyer ... until this past year. It's now owned by a serious developer who is converting it into apartments. New windows, hundreds of these, were installed in the massive building in recent days.
The building remains a looming monument, seen by thousands daily passing on Interstate 30, a short distance away, having served many thousands of veterans over its three and half decades of operation.
The hopes of many to save it from a future other than the wrecking ball have been realized, and Little Rock can be very proud of what the city will gain from likely the largest renovation in the state's history.
Ray Hanley lives in Little Rock.