Battle Creek Sanitarium Federal Center, Michigan

The former Battle Creek Sanitarium is now a federal office complex. It is currently used primarily by the Defense Logistics Agency and some other military and federal administrative entities. What is now a 21 building campus, started in 1866 as the Western Health Reform Institute, a health resort favored by affluent people from urban centers all over the country.  Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was the medical superintendent from 1876 to 1942, and had unusual ideas about diet and health. Among his innovations developed here are said to be the use of radiation to treat cancer, and the accidental invention of flaked cereal. The sanitarium burned down in 1902, and was replaced with its current structure, which was then expanded with the tower building in 1928. At that time, at its peak, the site covered 30 acres, and could accommodate 1,300 guests. During the depression the sanitarium was bankrupted, and the main building was sold to the US Army, in 1942, for use as a hospital for American soldiers injured in war. It became one of the largest hospitals in the country, with almost 12,000 patients in 1945. The hospital closed after the Korean War, in 1954, and the building became the property of the federal General Services Administration (GSA), the arm of the federal government that manages federal property. It became a center for managing civilian nuclear preparedness and global US defense logistics when the Federal Defense Administration moved offices here from Washington, in 1952. This entity has changed names and activities over the years, shedding civil defense functions to FEMA, but many of its functions carry on as the Defense Logistics Agency, which continues to be the main tenant in the building. Since 1972, the division based here has been primarily involved in the disposal of federal property. In 2003, the GSA’s portion of the complex was rededicated as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center.