Dedicated in 1889, the Los Angeles National Cemetery began as a cemetery for the Pacific Branch National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, the only National Home located west of the Rocky Mountains. The home opened in 1888 to care for disabled Union veterans of the Civil War, with land set aside on the eastern edge of the home’s 640-acre campus for use as a cemetery.  Currently covering 114 acres, the national cemetery is the final resting place for 14 Medal of Honor recipients. The cemetery’s administration building and columbarium are Spanish Revival structures that honor the architectural heritage of Southern California.

In the wake of the Civil War, thousands of volunteer soldiers were left with injuries and disabilities, needing long-term care that was often more than families could provide.  In 1865, the U.S. Congress passed legislation creating the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers to provide medical care and all the basic necessities of life: shelter, meals, clothing, and employment. Three branches of the national home system opened in 1866, eventually totaling 11 by 1929, including the Pacific Branch in Los Angeles.

Congress authorized the funding to establish a national home on the West Coast in 1887. U.S. Senator John P. Jones and his business partner, Colonel Robert S. Baker, deeded a 640-acre site to the U.S. Government to establish the home, to be called the Pacific Branch. Construction commenced in 1888, and in the same year 1,000 veterans arrived and lived in temporary barracks until construction of the permanent facilities was completed.

Administration building and chapel, Los Angeles National Cemetery Courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, History Program

On the eastern edge of the Pacific Branch National Home, 20 acres of land were set aside for a national cemetery and dedicated in May 1889.  The cemetery was expanded in 1890 with an additional 20 acres and further expansions in the 20th century increased the cemetery’s size to today’s acreage.  The cemetery's administration office and chapel, located at the main entrance, was constructed in the popular Mission Revival style by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939-40. The building's white stuccoed walls and red Spanish tile roof with adjoining square bell tower reflect the appearance of the early Spanish missions along the California coast.  The cemetery's columbarium, also built by the WPA around 1939 in the Mission Revival style, is the only indoor columbarium in the national cemetery system. 

There are three large commemorative monuments at the cemetery.  In the northern San Juan Hill section is a massive granite obelisk honoring those who gave their lives in defense of the United States.  Near the cemetery’s rostrum is a cast-zinc figure of a Union soldier standing at parade-rest on top of a small boulder.  Dated circa 1896, the figure originally topped an elaborate drinking fountain elsewhere on the Pacific Branch campus.  The soldier was moved to the cemetery in 1942 and rededicated.

United Spanish War Veterans Monument Courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, History Program

Sculptor Roger Noble Burnham completed the white marble United Spanish War Veterans Monument in 1950.  Also known as “The Spirit of ’98,” the monument to veterans of the Spanish-American War has three figures: two soldiers flanking a female bearing a torch. The monument was destroyed by an earthquake in 1971.  Sculptor David Wilkens recreated it two years later.  He sculpted the new monument in reinforced concrete and plaster.  The monument features a bronze plaque that dedicates the memorial to those who “extended the hand of liberty.”

Two artillery cannons, possibly dating to the late 19th century, are positioned at the intersection of the cemetery’s Constitution and Gettysburg Avenues on reproduction wooden caissons.

Los Angeles National Cemetery is the final resting place for 14 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, given for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

The Los Angeles National Cemetery also has two unusual burials; a dog that veterans of the Pacific Branch soldiers home adopted and a war dog wounded in the Pacific during World War II. Old Bonus and Blackout’s burials are exceptions for national cemeteries as the burial of pets or animals is now prohibited.