Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District
historic district in Illinois, United States
The Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District is the historic campus of a branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville, Illinois. The branch, which opened in 1898, was one of eleven branches of the National Home, which formed in 1867 to treat Union soldiers disabled during the Civil War. U.S. Representative and Danville resident Joseph Gurney Cannon used his political influence to establish the Danville Branch, which brought money and jobs to the city. The campus served as both a medical facility and a planned community for the area's veterans, and it included housing, veteran-run shops, community halls, a school and library, and a chapel. Most of these buildings were designed in the Georgian Revival style; however, the library is a Classical Revival building, and the chapel has a Gothic Revival design. The campus also includes the Danville National Cemetery. The buildings remaining on the campus are presently divided between Danville's Veterans Affairs hospital and the Danville Area Community College.
The campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 30, 1992.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District” is historic district in Illinois, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Danville, Branch and National, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “historic district in Illinois, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16828873. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1867 and 1992.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District primary sources, Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District archive and Danville research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Danville Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.