National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Mountain Branch, Morgue, Lamont & Veterans Way, Johnson City, Washington County, TN

Significance: The Morgue was constructed as part of the original Beaux-Arts campus for the Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS). This federal veterans' institution held a competition for the design of its ninth branch, to be located in Washington County, Tennessee at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The location was chosen at the urging of local Congressman Walter P. Brownlow for its healthful climate and proximity to underserved veterans in Tennessee and other southern states. Although founded for Civil War veterans of the Union Army, the NHDVS membership had expanded over the decades to include veterans of the Mexican, Indian, and Spanish American Wars.

The winning design by New York architect Joseph H. Freedlander incorporated the latest ideas of comprehensive design and Neoclassicism as taught by the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Freedlander created a hierarchy of communal buildings, barracks, and service functions arranged along a central avenue with views south to the nearby mountains. Smaller scale support buildings such as the Morgue were located on secondary axes. Located just north of the hospital, the French Renaissance Revival Morgue is finely detailed and a complementary part of the designed campus ensemble. Architect J. H. Freedlander lavished ornamentation on this small free-standing structure, giving dignity to its function. Inside it housed an autopsy theater to the rear of the building and small chapel in the front. Deceased patients could be discreetly transported via a tunnel from the hospital to the Morgue. The Morgue serves as a link between the Mountain Branch and the adjacent National Cemetery, where veterans could chose to be buried and continued to receive respectful care.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1791
Survey number: HABS TN-254-L
Building/structure dates: 1904 Initial Construction