Just across the street from the sprawl and activity of the ETSU campus sits a quiet little town boasting its own theater, library and post office. Dog-walkers stroll the quiet streets past clapboard houses flying American flags.
It is a village so peaceful and pretty that Thornton Wilder might have written about it, were it not owned by the federal government.
The “village” is, in fact, James H. Quillen Veterans Administration Medical Center at Mountain Home, a home away from home for tens of thousand of veterans since 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln authorized its construction to aid Southern soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War.
But times are changing, and the buildings that once housed wounded soldiers may soon be turned into classrooms.
ETSU President Paul Stanton announced recently that the VA will transfer 24 buildings and 70 acres of land to ETSU in an effort to cut federal spending. The agreement is the result of the VA’s Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services initiative – a plan that could garner congressional approval as soon as September.
While the transfer of ownership won’t change lives immediately – ETSU already leases and manages 12 of the buildings it is set to acquire, and others need renovation – it will ensure future growth for the university.
“It’s coming at the right time,” said Larry Coleman, assistant dean of the College of Medicine. “We’re beginning to have a shortage of faculty space.”
Faculty space isn’t the only concern, however. The college’s much-heralded expansion remains the primary issue at hand.
With this agreement, however, the university will gain four buildings and eight houses to do with as it chooses.
Of those buildings, Stanton has said that the two adjacent to Stanton-Gerber Hall were already under renovation to establish an infectious disease center and research offices.
Two other buildings — VA Buildings 6 and 7 – will become the medical school’s forensic center and pharmacy school, respectively.
The eight houses, said Stanton, will continue to be used by the VA for a time, until the university can have a student center and additional offices.
So while other universities are scrabbling to gain ground, ETSU will likely be $100 million richer in property.
“Land is one of the most important things to a university,” said Coleman. “Most colleges have buildings on top of each other, but we’ll have lots of space.”
The deal also has other benefits for ETSU. “It’ll keep us from having to renegotiate with the federal government in 33 years,” Coleman said. Who knows what could happen by then?”
The VA administration has also made it clear that ETSU won’t be the only ones to benefit in this arrangement. VA Director Carl Gerber told the Johnson City Press that veterans depend on ETSU’s medical school for health care.
“[The agreement] strengthens both institutions,” said Gerber, who noted that the medical school was initially located on the VA site to help provide for veterans’ care.
“Anything that secures the future of the medical school is good for veterans’ care,” he said.
Others in the community are just glad that the property isn’t in danger of becoming a retail mall.
“If it was a choice between real estate developers and ETSU,” said pathologist John Schweitzer, “I’d pick ETSU.”

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