Page 235 - a-history-of-columbia-county-florida-(1996)-edward-f-keuchel

A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 224/340

The Early Twentieth Century
from 1907 until 1917. They were utilized for a short time by
Company C of the First Florida Infantry in 1917, but were vacant
when the war ended.
On January 19,1920, the city council of Lake City proposed to
sell the buildings and property to the federal government for
seventy-five thousand dollars. On May 20, 1920, the tract and
buildings were transferred to the federal government for use as
United States Health Service Hospital No. 63. In 1921 the Vet­
erans Bureau was organized as a separate unit, and in 1924 the
hospital was renamed Veterans Bureau Hospital No. 63. In 1930
the Veterans Bureau was reorganized as the Veterans Admin­
istration, and the Lake City facility became the Veterans Admin­
istration Hospital.38
None of the original buildings remain as a part of the present
Veterans Administration Hospital. One of the largest of the old
buildings, the science building of the university, was the surgical
wing of the hospital. It was demolished in 1956. The last of the
original buildings, the old Flagler gymnasium, was used as a
recreation hall by the hospital until it was torn down in I960.39
Lake City was not to have its university, but the VA Hospital has
been one of the most important employers in Columbia County and
a major asset both to the community and the people it served.
Whereas the VA Hospital offered a new dimension to the
economy of Columbia County, other aspects of the economy were
undergoing significant changes in this period. Agriculture es­
pecially was affected by the changes necessitated by the boll
weevils’ destruction of the cotton industry of the South. Columbia
County’s farmers had faced hardships before. Farmers are always
plagued by adverse weather. In addition to “regular occurrences”

“Mozelle W. Tompkins, “VA—54 Years of Service," Lake City Reporter,
December 13, 1974.
39Ibid.; Century in the Sun, pp. 27-28.
177

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