Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center

In 1866 the Seventh-day Adventists established the Western Health Reform Institute on eight acres of land, the former residence of Benjamin Graves, a judge of the Michigan Superior Court. H. S. Lay, the first physician in charge, and James and Ellen White, early founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, were instrumental in founding this health institution. The goals of the institution were to teach the Adventists' version of holistic medicine, which stressed the importance of temperance and preventive medicine, taking in visitors and advocating the use of Graham bread and counseling eight hours of sleep at night. From this farmhouse the institution struggled to live up to its name but there were ideas and propositions for a building that would lead to a worldwide reputation.[3]

In 1876, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, medical director, renamed the property and expanded the facility to include a hospital, central building, and other cottages.[3] Much of the original sanitarium burned down in 1902.[3] A large building by architect Frank Mills Andrews opened in 1903 at a cost of $1 million and was considered a marvel of modern planning and medical technology.[3] Under Kellogg's auspices, the sanitarium expanded, and a tower addition was completed in 1928.[3] The tide turned, however, in 1929 when the economy collapsed and the nation entered into the depression. Within four years, the sanitarium had gone into receivership.[6]

Postcard from hospital era

With the outbreak of World War II, local builder Floyd Skidmore proposed that the near-vacant sanitarium be converted into a military hospital.[7] Upon this recommendation, in August 1942, the United States Army bought the buildings for $2.25 million and FJ Skidmore & Son rebuilt the derelict structure in six months (working around the clock), enlarging the capacity of the hospital from 1,000 beds to 1,500, and constructing rails and ramps throughout the facility.[8][9][3]

On Feb. 22, 1943, the hospital was officially dedicated by its first commander, Colonel Norman T. Kirk. He was the former chief of surgical services at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C. The new hospital was named after Colonel Percy L. Jones, US Army, a pioneering military surgeon who developed modern battlefield ambulance evacuation.[3][10]

The hospital grew as the flow of casualties increased. In 1944, W.K. Kellogg donated his mansion on nearby Gull Lake to the Army, which assigned it to Percy Jones as a convalescent center. The Fort Custer Reception Center was also used by Percy Jones for patients on “casual duty.”[11] The Percy Jones hospital complex was massive, self-contained, and fully integrated. It had its own water supply and power generation. It also had its own bank, post office, public library and radio station "KPJ". The Percy Jones Institute was an accredited high school, with dozens of educational and training programs for patients ranging from photography to business to agriculture.[12]

At the height of the war, more than two thousand people visited the hospital on a daily basis, including celebrities such as Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Ed Sullivan, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers.[13]

In 1945, Percy Jones became the largest medical installation of any kind in the world. Following V-J Day (victory over Japan) in 1945, the hospital population peaked with 11,427 patients assigned to its three area sites. Percy Jones specialized as an Army center for neurosurgery, amputations and handicapped rehabilitation, deep x-ray therapy and plastic artificial eyes. In one month alone, 729 operations were performed.[14][15]

After a short deactivation period, the hospital reopened only a few days after hostilities broke out in Korea in the summer of 1950. In 1951, about 1,000 patients were at Percy Jones, many of them with frostbite caused by the bone-chilling Korean weather.[16] In 1954, after treating more than 100,000 patients, the Percy Jones Hospital was permanently closed and the building was placed under the control of the General Services Administration.[17]

In the decade it was open, the hospital made a lasting impact on the city. Battle Creek was the first city in America to install wheelchair ramps in its sidewalks, to accommodate the Percy Jones patients when they visited downtown.[6][18]

In 1954, the GSA moved the National Federal Civil Defense Administration (from Washington D.C.) and the Staff College of the National Civil Defense Training Agency (from Olney, Maryland) to the retired hospital in Battle Creek. The facility was again rebuilt to prepare it for atomic attack. The civil defense operations at the facility included coordinating government and private technical services, volunteer and shelter deployment, public education, and emergency communications. In recognition of the facility's new purpose, the building was renamed the Battle Creek Federal Center.[12]

Five years later, in 1959, the GSA began using facility space for other federal organizations, and by 1962, twenty-eight different agencies were housed there. The Office for Civil Defense was moved from the Battle Creek Federal Center in late 1962 and the Sixth Corps of the U.S. Fifth Army and Defense Logistics Services Center (DLSC) were transferred in.

Currently, the Defense Logistics Agency (Defense Logistics Information Service (DLIS) and Systems Integration Office (DSIO-J)) remains as the principal tenant of the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, along with the DLA Disposition Services, and the Air Force Cataloging and Standardization Center (CASC).[3]

In 2003, the building was re-dedicated as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in honor of three U.S. senators who had met as wounded servicemen while they were being treated at the hospital during WWII: Philip Hart of Michigan, who had been wounded during the Normandy Landings at Utah Beach on D-Day, Bob Dole of Kansas, who was wounded in combat over Italy, and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who had been wounded while engaged in combat in Italy.[3]