Filed Under Helena

Fort Harrison Veterans Hospital Historic District

In the 1870s, the U.S. Army dotted the territory with forts as it worked with brutal efficiency to confine Indians to reservations. With that mission well underway by the 1880s, it closed most of its nine Montana forts and decided to consolidate operations at a new location. Eager to benefit economically, Helena businessmen campaigned for the new headquarters, pointing to the capital city’s strategic location on two transcontinental rail lines and the valley’s healthy climate. The fact that President Benjamin Harrison’s son Russell lived in Helena may have helped their cause. In 1892, Congress authorized $300,000 to build the fort at Helena. Construction began in 1894; Nicholas Kessler’s nearby brickyard likely supplied the brick. Architect C. S. Johnson designed the “plain but substantially built” buildings using standard army plans and situated them facing a central parade ground. The rectilinear buildings reflected the Army’s preference for order and symmetry, and the residences’ sizes and detailing reflected their occupants’ ranks. African American soldiers with the Twenty-fourth Infantry returned to the fort after serving with distinction in the Philippines in 1902. Threatened with closure after World War I, Fort Harrison found new life in the 1920s, first as a tuberculosis sanitorium and then as a veterans hospital. Construction of a new hospital building in the 1930s modernized the facility. The Devil’s Brigade (First Special Service Force) and Montana National Guard troops trained here during World War II, only briefly interrupting the fort’s primary, continuing mission as a Veterans Affairs healthcare facility.

Images

Fort Harrison Hospital Historic District, Helena, MT.
Fort Harrison Hospital Historic District, Helena, MT. Historic overview of original Fort Harrison hospital Source: Montana Historical Society Archives - PAc 2013-50 Date: ca. 1920
Fort Harrison Veterans Hospital, Helena, MT
Fort Harrison Veterans Hospital, Helena, MT Fort William Henry Harrison Hospital campus showing converted barracks with tuberculosis porches in the 1920s. Source: Helena As She Was Date: ca.1920
Fort Harrison, Helena, MT
Fort Harrison, Helena, MT Historic aerial view of Fort Harrison Veterans Hospital Source: Montana Historical Society Photo Archives 947-455a Creator: Edward Reinig, photographer Date: ca. 1925
Fort Harrison Historic District, Helena, MT
Fort Harrison Historic District, Helena, MT View of Honor Drive, the main entrance to the hospital campus Source: National Register of Historic Places Nomination for Fort Harrison Veterans’ Hospital Historic District. On file at Montana State Historic Preservation Office. Creator: Jon Axline, photographer Date: May 2016

Location

3687 Veterans Drive, Fort Harrison, MT | public

Metadata

Montana Historical Society, “Fort Harrison Veterans Hospital Historic District,” Historic Montana, accessed March 28, 2024, https://historicmt.org/items/show/3396.