Marietta National Cemetery, Lodge, 500 Washington Avenue, Marietta

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

500 Washington Avenue, Marietta, Cobb County, Georgia. The coordinates for the Marietta 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 GA-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 Marietta National Cemetery from the U.S. Army in (Public Law Date: Builder/Contractor: Unknown. Description: The lodge built in for Marietta National Cemetery is the first example of the Dutch Colonial Revival style lodge constructed in the national cemetery system. The principal elevation is to the west. The lodge has a gambrel roof and a low, shed-roofed dormer in the front and rear slopes of the main roof. There is an interior chimney on the north side elevation, and the stack has been stuccoed above the roofline.

The first-floor windows are paired in the front fa ade; the upper sash is glazed with nine lights on the first floor and in the gables, while the dormers appear to have double-hung sash glazed with six-over-six lights. There is an integral porch to north end of the west front elevation. The porch is screened and the door into the lodge proper is accessed via this porch. The walls of the lodge are stuccoed, the foundations are concrete, and the roof has asbestos-based shingles. Inside, the floors are pine. Maintenance records for the cemetery enumerate mechanical system upgrades as well as the acquisition of new appliances, new fixtures, laundry tubs, bathtubs, and sinks.

The floors were varnished and the walls in the basement were whitewashed in Aluminum screen doors were installed in and the screens of the front porch were replaced in The roof was redone twice, once in and then again in The window wells were built up to help direct water away from the house. Inside, the sliding doors were replaced aluminum Venetian blinds were installed linoleum tile supplanted the rolled linoleum in the office and acoustical tiles were placed in the kitchen MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERY,

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No. GA-1-A (page 2) In work was done on the chimney top, on the south side; and in work on the double- flue at the chimney top, on the north side, was done. It is not clear from the maintenance ledgers what those projects entailed. Site Context: Marietta National Cemetery covers over twenty acres and is laid out in a rectangular plot bounded by a stone wall. Inside, the pathways take curvilinear routes through the grounds and subdivide the cemetery into burial sections. The main entrance is at the northwest corner of the cemetery at the intersections of Washington Avenue and Cole Street.

A monumental arch marks this entry; the arch was one of five built in the national cemetery system and was completed in The lodge faces west to Cole Street, and is located near the arch at the main entrance and to the north of the main drive or path into grounds from that archway. 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 MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. GA-1-A (page 3) 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 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. MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

GA-1-A (page 4) 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 Of the twentieth-century lodge forms, the design in the Dutch Colonial Revival oeuvre was selected most often. Fourteen lodges were built using this plan between and The design called for a one and one-half story building with masonry construction at the first floor and wood-frame gambrel roofs enclosing the upper floor.

The building footprint was rectangular and included an enclosed porch and office in the front, a living room and stair in the middle, and a dining room and kitchen at the rear. The second floor contained three bedrooms and a bathroom opening off of a central hall. Three versions of the design were used. The first in four lodges erected between and with hollow core tile walls covered in stucco, shingled roofs and gable ends, and dormers two windows in width on the front and rear. The second version expanded the dormer from two windows to four, adding more light the upper floor. This plan was used twice, for lodges in Nashville and Chattanooga, in WPA funds paid for the construction of lodges in including eight built to a third rendition of the Dutch Colonial Revival design.

In the building materials included a brick construction on the first floor and faux half-timbered or brick gables. The lodge in Marietta is especially important as the first lodge built in the Dutch Colonial Revival style in the national cemetery system. The Marietta lodge cost to construct of stuccoed hollow tile and frame. This lodge, completed in replaced an early lodge type that was significant as an example of the linear plan lodge initially one-story and then raised to two stories.

Marietta National Cemetery was established in and is the final resting place of over Union soldiers, many of whom died during the march from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta, Georgia, in to The owner of the land, Henry Cole, hoped the cemetery would be open to soldiers from both Union and Confederate armies but neither side shared his vision. Cole ceded the property to the government and construction on the cemetery landscape began. An important part of the cemetery landscape was the one-story brick lodge with a linear plan built in The lodge had three rooms, plus verandas or piazzas along the front and rear that expanded the living area and likely made the interiors more comfortable in the humid climate.

The contractors for the project, Wallis & Henderson, completed the lodge at a cost of The kitchen was originally located in the basement, but an addition to the building provided kitchen and dining spaces on the first floor. The date of this expansion is not known. In a second floor was added to the lodge to better accommodate the superintendent and his family. With the MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. GA-1-A (page 5) second floor, the lodge offered six rooms and so was comparable to the newer buildings constructed for the national cemeteries as well as to early lodges in Annapolis, Fort Smith, Vicksburg, Natchez, and Barrancas, that shared a similar floor plan.

The walls of the Marietta lodge were one-brick (9 ) thick at the first floor and not built to support a second floor, since that addition came some years later. The extra load caused some cracks to appear in the walls, and by inspectors for the Quartermaster derided it as poorly built. In the survey, the condition of the lodge was described in similar terms and likely influenced its replacement in with the Dutch Colonial Revival lodge.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS GA-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, 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, MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERY,

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No. GA-1-A (page 6)

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS GA-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.