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History of Wood Veterans Home
Milwaukee County Wisconsin
[Wood National Cemetery]
Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin - On line searchable database
The original veterans' hospital at that location opened on May 1, 1867 to care for Civil War veterans. The post
office established there was named in honor of General George H WOOD, who served as President of the Board of
Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. General WOOD served in both the Spanish-American
War and World War I. (Source: "Romance of Wisconsin Place Names," by Robert E Gard and L G Sorden, October House,
Inc., New York, 1968.)
Additional information is also found in "Wisconsin - Its Territorial and Statehood Post Offices," published by the
Wisconsin Postal History Society, 1995:
The original post office was established with the name of "National Home" on May 9, 1876, with George W BARBER as
postmaster. It was changed to "Veterans Administration" on March 1, 1932, with John F COULTER as postmaster. The name
was then changed to "Wood" on July 1, 1937, with Frank DILLION as postmaster. The office was discontinued September 29,
1987, with mail service from Milwaukee. On that same date, the office was re-established as a classified station of
Milwaukee named "Veterans Administration Center Station." Its ZIP code was 53193. It used an old West Allis cancellation.
Because of a paper error [no explanation given], the Wood post office was not officially closed until February 25, 1989.
The office was located in Section 35, T7N R21E in Wauwatosa Township of Milwaukee County.
A direct contact with the hospital at the address/phone number listed below should help you locate more information for
your search. To the extent that the VA records contained information on immediate family - and the extent to which these
records can be shared with family members - this may or may not provide the details that you're looking for.
Since these veterans were from all over the state, it is not known the hospital's practices regarding the placement of
obituaries when the veteran died. In many cases, you might find the obituary in the town he was born or resided in prior
to becoming ill. If it was published locally, it was probably placed in the Milwaukee Journal (now the Milwaukee Journal-
Sentinel). The hospital staff may be able to give you some guidance on this point. In most cases, death certificates
should be on file in Milwaukee County Courthouse.
The zipcode "53193," is "Wood, Milwaukee Co, WI; an old and currently unused ZIP code for the Veterans Administration
(VA) Medical Center near Milwaukee. Until fairly recent times, the VA Hospital (and the place where it's located) were
both known as "Wood".
Here's the contact information for the hospital, from a recent Milwaukee phone directory:
Department of Veterans Affairs
VA Medical Center
5000 West National Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53295
(414) 384-2000
The Wood National Cemetery is also located at that mailing address, and its phone number is (414) 382-5800.
A VA Regional Office is also listed (toll-free) at (800) 827-1000.
The Register of Deeds Office for Milwaukee County is located at 910 N. 9th St., Milwaukee, WI 53233-1417;
telephone (414) 278-4067.
This information was contributed by
[Bill HANDRICH] and for that we would like to thank him.
© 1997 - 2009 MAK - All rights reserved
Last Revised: --
Wednesday, 29-Mar-2006 02:35:41 MST
Pages maintained by MAK
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