Mountain Home National Cemetery is located in the northeastern section of Tennessee in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains within the city limits of Johnson City. The cemetery is on the grounds of the Mountain Home Veterans Administration Center. Originally known as the Mountain Home Branch of the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteered Soldiers, the facility was the product of sustained efforts by Tennessee Congressman Walter Preston Brownlow. In 1901 Congress approved a bill introduced by Brownlow to establish a national home in the Johnson City area. A designated board of managers chose a 450-acre site and commissioned New York architect J. H. Freedlander to design 36 French Renaissance-style buildings. The home opened Oct. 15, 1903. Five years later, special dispensation was granted to permit the interment of Congressman Brownlow in the Mountain Home cemetery. He and his wife occupy the only graves inside Monument Circle. The Mountain Home Branch of the National Homes was the ninth, and last, of its kind funded by Congress to care for Union veterans of the Civil War. In 1973, it was transferred to the Veterans Administration and the home cemetery became a national cemetery. The cemetery is part of the Mountain Home Branch-National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers National Historic Landmark district, designated on June 17, 2011.