Mobile National Cemetery, Lodge, 1202 Virginia Street, Mobile

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AL-1-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Virginia Street, Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama. The coordinates for Mobile National Cemetery, Lodge are W and N, and they were obtained in August with, it is assumed, NAD There is no restriction on the release of the locational data to the public.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AL-1-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was known as the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration took over management of Mobile National Cemetery from the U.S. Army in (Public Law Date: Builder/Contractor: Farley, Cahall and Baird. Description: The Second Empire style lodge was erected in to and made of brick masonry. It is one and one-half stories in height with a slate-covered mansard roof surmounted by a shallow hip roof covered in tin. The principal elevation faces southwest.

The windows are double-hung, wood sash glazed with six-over-one lights, but maintenance ledgers from the Veterans Administration indicate screens were installed, repaired changed for aluminum and replaced It is unclear from the ledger if the sash was replaced or the storm and screen combination was merely upgraded. The doors are wood and paneled; the floors are hardwood except for the office and bathroom, which were tiled in The lodge was electrified in and rewired at least twice since. Major additions include the sun parlor off the dining room in as well as the remodeling of the stairways to accommodate the new bathrooms that same year.

A half-bathroom was inserted onto the back porch in Waterproofing the basement and maintenance on the roof and gutters occurred at intervals, to keep the rain out, and one redecorating effort was noted in the ledger for Site Context: The lodge is located in the northwest corner of the southeast section (section four) of the initial Mobile Cemetery plot, and the porch-entry to the L-shaped lodge faces southwest toward the cemetery drive. The office is in the south room and is closest to the formal entrance to the grounds from Virginia Street; originally there were internal drives dividing the cemetery grounds into quadrants. The rostrum was placed at the intersection of the axial drives and the lodge was erected about 40 to the southeast of that central point.

Of the internal drives, only the loop past the lodge survives today. MOBILE NATIONAL CEMETERY,

Lodge Hals

No. AL-1-A (page 2) History: Please see the contextual report for an analysis of the architectural development of the lodge as a building type for the national cemeteries and its place within this prescribed landscape (HALS No. In Congress authorized the appropriation of land for use as national cemeteries so that the Union soldiers who perished in service to their country could be buried with honor. These became the first cemeteries in the national cemetery system; by the end of the decade almost men were buried in seventy-three national cemeteries. By that time the Office of the Quartermaster General, and the Quartermaster Montgomery C. Meigs in particular, had developed an architectural program for the cemetery.

The program created for the national cemeteries included an enclosing wall demarcating the grounds and ornamental iron gates cast to instill reverence to those who entered and calm the wrought emotions of a nation in mourning for its lost sons. Specific plantings, such as the Osage-orange hedge and various trees, were selected to give a pleasing appearance and, likely, to screen outbuildings - the business of cemetery maintenance - from public view. Less a commemorative architectural statement, the superintendent s lodge combined practicality with a respectful presence. Lodge plans first evolved from expedient wood-frame cottages to masonry buildings one-story in height and with a three-room floor plan.

Construction of the temporary wood-frame lodges took place in the years to and overlapped with the construction of the first permanent masonry lodges built to a standard, single-story design from to Officers in charge of the cemeteries soon found the floor plans of the temporary wood lodges and the first permanent masonry lodges inconvenient and, increasingly, unattractive. Moreover, representatives from the Quartermaster General s Office noted these three-room models were often too small for a superintendent and his family, and so in plans for a six- room, one and one-half story type were acquired from Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol Extension. The design was refined over the next two years and in drawn for the Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs s approval.

This standard plan featured a mansard roof and so became associated with the French or Second Empire style. Contemporary buildings, domestic and civic, exhibited this aesthetic and so the choice of the Quartermaster for a Second Empire style lodge is in keeping with national architectural trends as well as the personal taste of Meigs whose house also was erected in the Second Empire style. On the national stage, Alfred Mullet designed the Old Executive Office building in Washington, DC, a building whose construction in the coincided with the building of lodges in the Second Empire style in many of the national cemeteries.

The National Cemetery Administration identifies the Second Empire style lodge, referred to in the as the usual type, or even the full Meigs plan likely in reference to the Quartermaster s endorsement of the design, as the first generation of permanent lodges. It reflects a concerted effort to standardize what a national cemetery, including the lodge, should look like. The last cemeteries for which the Quartermaster contracted for this style of lodge were for Mobile, Alabama, and Beaufort, South Carolina, in The L-plan was revised in for the lodge in San Francisco, and then employed for the lodges MOBILE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. AL-1-A (page 3) in Mound City and Loudon Park. The revised plan was further improved for the construction of the lodge at Cypress Hills.

The revision to the standard L-plan primarily included a change in roof form from the mansard to a cross-gable and the use of banded brick in the exterior walls. Cypress Hills was a simpler expression of the type, with segmental arches over the windows instead of stone lintels and having no banded exterior brick in the walls. In the the plans called for an elongated office wing. This change to the L-plan accommodated an entrance hall in the middle of the building; the elongated L-plan was built in Santa Fe, Fort Smith, and Fort Leavenworth. By the century s end, standards of living called for conveniences the L-plan lodges lacked.

Advances in plumbing and heating technologies, in particular, made the L-plan outdated as expectations about the appropriate level of domestic sanitation that the government should provide to its employees changed. Even so, the Quartermaster omitted indoor toilets from the lodge floor plans until Maintenance of the existing lodges, as well as ell additions, addressed some of the inconveniences of the older buildings, and made the lodges more comfortable as living spaces. Between the and improvements to the existing lodges included the installation of indoor plumbing and bathrooms, central heating, closets and cupboards; adding a kitchen ell and converting the original kitchen into a dining room; and maintenance of windows, shutters, and porches.

By the Quartermaster determined some lodges warranted a complete overall, rather than renovation, and the department began to replace some of the buildings in the national cemeteries. For the new lodges, it created a succession of twenty-two different plans between and Nine of these plans were used to build multiple lodges, but thirteen were unique designs, used only once. Compared to the extended popularity of the L-plan, which lasted from to in its mansard-roof form and to in its later variations, the rapid succession of designs in the twentieth century suggests a new awareness among those directing the cemeteries of the need to construct lodges that were aesthetically and technologically up-to-date.

Over five decades, the Quartermaster endorsed a progression of plans from four-squares to bungalows to Colonial Revival designs and then to suburban ramblers. This progression paralleled the changes in form, style, building materials, and construction practices that occurred in the private housing market. Most of the lodges built in the twentieth century are indistinguishable from typical American middle-class and upper-middle-class suburban dwellings, with the exception of a second entrance for the superintendent s office. In some instances, such as in Hampton, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland, the army made a particular effort to match new lodges to their local surroundings, usually by building period-revival designs in places where those designs would have particular resonance.

In a nod to the colonial heritage of the Chesapeake, the Quartermaster built one-and-one-half-story brick lodges in a Colonial Revival style at these cemeteries in In another example, the desire to match designs to localities prompted the alteration of the L-plan lodge at San Francisco into a Spanish Mission Revival building in and the similarly extensive reconstruction of the Santa Fe lodge into the Pueblo Revival style in The lodge built in Mobile, Alabama, is significant as one of the last examples of the definitive L- MOBILE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

AL-1-A (page 4) plan type to be constructed in the national cemetery system and, as such, it is a particularly important extant example in the evolution of lodge design that occurred through the aegis of the Quartermaster s office in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Mobile, the national cemetery was established in and the city gave three acres of land for the burying ground. Soldiers had been buried in a section of the municipal cemetery, Magnolia, and this acreage extended that plot. By reports to the Quartermaster indicate the cemetery was plotted and a temporary wood lodge was built in conformity to the plans issued by the Office of the Quartermaster General.

A map of the cemetery included the wood-frame, temporary lodge building s footprint, which measured 19 4 x 33 10 . The floor plan consisted of two rooms. In a surrounding verandah was added. However, letters suggest living in the cemetery was unhealthy, and no superintendent lived on-site for any length of time. The death of the superintendent, Charles Jackson, in reinforced the opinion that residence in the lodge in that cemetery was fatal. The recommendation following Jackson s decease was for the superintendent to live elsewhere. Likely successive superintendents lived in town, rather than in the cemetery, until healthier quarters could be built.

By the decade s end, the Quartermaster s office resolved to provide a permanent lodge for the superintendent of the cemetery, and in June the Quartermaster entered into a contract with Farley, Cahall, and Baird. Costs of construction for a brick lodge in the Second Empire style were estimated at The contractors were ready to start in July with an anticipated completion date in March As the work neared completion, civil engineer C. M. Clarke reviewed the construction and wrote, damningly, that the work was of such inferior quality he thought it must have been done on purpose. The contractors used unseasoned sapwood, for example, and they also installed the slating improperly causing the roof to leak.

The mortar joints did not set before winter came, and so the cold temperatures caused the mortar to freeze. The brickwork subsequently needed repointing. Many of the repairs were done by March and, at the time, the contractor requested permission to use cement based mortar rather than lime on the lower floor walls. This would cost more, but was endorsed. The inspection in revealed that the damp climate caused the paper to pull away from the walls and likely prevented the kalsomine from adhering. The only recourse was the clean the walls and repaint them. The survey indicated the lodge remained true to the L-shaped plan, with three rooms per floor, without any additions.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AL-1-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Annual Report of the Secretary of War. [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. New York: Doubleday, Dickinson, William C., Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds. Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation s Capital. Athens: University of Ohio Press for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, MOBILE NATIONAL CEMETERY,

Lodge Hals

No. AL-1-A (page 5) General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries, 1865-ca. Record Group 92, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Holt, Dean W. American Military Cemeteries: A Comprehensive Illustrated Guide to the Hallowed Grounds of the United States, Including Cemeteries Overseas. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Message of the President of the United States [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Meyer, Richard E., ed. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press, National Cemetery Historical File, Department of Memorial Affairs, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

Sloane, David Charles. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Zipf, Catherine W. Marking Union Victory in the South: The Construction of the National Cemetery System. In Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AL-1-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The documentation of the lodges and rostrums in the national cemeteries was undertaken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), one of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O'Connor, Chief. The project was sponsored by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Sara Amy Leach, Senior Historian. Project planning was coordinated by Catherine C. Lavoie, Chief of HABS. Historical research was undertaken by HABS Historians Virginia B. Price and Michael R. Harrison. NCA Historians Jennifer Perunko, Alec Bennett, and Hillori Schenker provided research material, edited and reviewed written reports.

Field work for selected sites was carried out and measured drawings produced by HABS Architects Paul Davidson, Ryan Pierce, and Mark Schara.