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Office Hours: Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Closed federal holidays except Memorial Day.

Visitation Hours: Open daily during daylight hours.





Danville National Cemetery is located in Vermilion County, Ill., at the eastern side of the VA Illiana Health Care System. This area once belonged to the Miami, Kickapoo and Pottowatomie tribes of the Algonquin Indians. Salt deposits located on the Vermilion River attracted a variety of wildlife that served as a constant food supply for the local Native Americans; they later attracted the first white settlers to the region. In 1818, the Kickapoo ceded a large area of land to the federal government, including what is now Vermilion County. In the mid-1800s, coal miners settled in the Danville area, and soon the region ranked as Illinois' top coal producer. From 1841 to 1859, Abraham Lincoln practiced law in Danville; in 1852, he established a law practice with Ward Lamon. This was Lincoln's only permanent law office in the Illinois circuit.



Although no Civil War battles occurred here, many men from Danville volunteered for the Union. The men who returned home were often sick, wounded or disabled. In 1897, Congress authorized the establishment of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville. The next year, a small plot of land was set aside as a burial site; it was subsequently designated a national cemetery in 1898. In 1901, the present cemetery was plotted and the remains of those buried in the old cemetery were reinterred at the new site.



In 1930, the Soldiers Home was transferred to the Veterans Administration (VA), and the cemetery became part of the VA Cemetery System. An internal study of the VA Cemetery System in 1948 recommended that the cemetery be transferred to the Department of the Army. No action was taken, however, and in 1973 when the National Cemetery System was reassigned from the Department of the Army to the Veterans Administration, it was merged into the National Cemetery System. Danville National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.



Monuments and Memorials

The Soldiers Monument at Danville National Cemetery was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1917. The monument consists of a granite base topped by a bronze life-sized figure depicting a young Civil War soldier holding his musket. Clark Noble was the sculptor.