Birth of a veterans campus led to development of the Westside.

LIKE many Civil War veterans, Californian Samuel Corbett was left to find his own way home when he was released from the Army in 1865--even though home was 3,000 miles away.

"I am a very badly used up man," Corbett wrote in his diary on Aug. 8, 1865. "During the last campaign I lost 40 pounds of flesh, and had it lasted two weeks longer I should have left it all on the sacred soil of Virginia."

The federal government reconsidered its treatment of veterans, many physically and mentally scarred, and began establishing homes and hospitals. That included a national home for veterans living west of the Rocky Mountains. More than 60 sites applied, but a 300acre location west of Los Angeles won out for its "calming breezes," "sunny weather" and "lovely natural setting."

On March 3, 1887, Congress entered into a deed for the land, jointly owned by the families of Nevada Sen. John P. Jones and Arcadia Bandini Stearns, widow of land baron Col. Robert S. Baker.

In the deed, Congress agreed to build and permanently maintain a national home for disabled volunteer soldiers and sailors. "It's stated seven times in the deed that it would be permanently maintained for that purpose," said Ricardo Bandini Johnson, an heir of Arcadia Bandini Stearns.

A decade before the gift, the families subdivided their "San Vicente y Santa Monica" land grant to build communities that would become Santa Monica and other neighborhoods. While the families had a long history of philanthropy, the veterans hospital and the 2,000-bed home also created jobs and demand for their nearby residences, which sold briskly.

"They needed doctors, cooks, all sorts of occupations," said Susan C. Young, founder and executive director of the Veterans Park Conservancy, a group working with the VA to improve and maintain the grounds. "It really is what got the Westside going."

By 1898, following the Spanish American War, the expansive campus included a library, theater, dining hall, chapel, post office, laundry and barracks.

Today, the campus houses fewer than 1,000 veterans.

Over the past 50 years, large chunks of the campus have been chipped away for various purposes, including construction of Wilshire Boulevard, the San Diego (405) freeway and the federal building, where the FBI and other agencies keep offices.

Community groups were able to forestall some additional development.

Still, non-VA uses prevail. The northern tip of the campus is leased by the Brentwood School, a tony private academy. Active oil derricks dot an expanse southeast of the school's campus. And large swaths of surface lots are used to store vehicles for car dealerships and provide overflow parking for the Getty Center.

Bandini Johnson said the heirs of the two families that donated the land want the government to remember its commitment to providing care. "This land is supposed to be for the soldiers," Bandini Johnson said. "There are very few family members who would have agreed with any of those uses."