Grand Junction VA Medical Center

In 1945, the U.S. government approved construction of a VA hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. Four years later, in 1949, the Grand Junction VA Hospital opened its doors and started treating Veterans. 

The new hospital was built on 40 acres that the City of Grand Junction originally planned to use to expand the city golf course to 18 holes. Instead, city officials donated the land to the federal government as the site for a hospital that would provide quality health care services to local Veterans. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs paid a private construction company $3,406,000 to build the hospital at what was then the far eastern edge of town. When it opened, the new hospital was surrounded on 2 sides by farmland, but the area developed quickly during the post-war boom in the 1950s.   

George Addison Crawford, a Kansas politician and real-estate developer, founded Grand Junction in the early 1880s. The town is named for its strategic location at the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers. Shortly after incorporating Grand Junction on July 22, 1882, Crawford established Colorado’s first vineyard by planting 60 acres of wine grapes along Rapid Creek near the town of Palisade. Today, Grand Junction is located in the heart of Colorado’s wine country with about 30 wineries in the valley. 

Since the original VA hospital opened in 1949, the population of Grand Junction and the state of Colorado has increased nearly 500%. Today, the VA Western Colorado Healthcare System, which includes the Grand Junction VA Medical Center and 4 community clinics, treats thousands of Veterans across 18 counties in three states: Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.

Learn more about the history of VA