Walter Reed Army Medical Center has become nationally known for the famous patients it has helped and the injured soldiers it has recuperated. On Thursday, the 96-year-old crown jewel of U.S. military hospitals lost its battle. The base closing commission approved the Pentagon's recommendation to shut down the Army's historic hospital and move its staff and services across town to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., which will be updated and expanded. In a nod to the Army hospital's century-old heritage, the expanded facility will be renamed Walter Reed. Today Walter Reed admits about 16,000 patients a year. They include hundreds of the more seriously wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is rich in history. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. Douglas MacArthur both died there. President Ronald Reagan was treated there. World leaders like King Hussein and the Shah of Iran were seen by Walter Reed's physicians. Bob Hope entertained troops at the hospital. Pieces of President Abraham Lincoln's skull and the bullet that killed him are in its museum. Near the northern end of the District of Columbia, Walter Reed sits on 113 acres _ 4 acres more than the Vatican. Spanning nearly 50 buildings, it is the Army's largest health care facility. The complex includes the main hospital, the old hospital, a hotel, a chapel, a gym, a library, a mini mall and a bowling center, not to mention its 65 graduate medical training programs and the largest military medical research laboratory. "It almost looked like a college campus, believe it or not," said Gary Augustine, a Vietnam War veteran who arrived at Walter Reed after being injured in a land mine explosion. The original building was built in 1909 after Maj. William Borden pushed to revive a decade-old idea of a general hospital in Washington. He was to name it after his patient Maj. Walter Reed, who helped find a vaccine for yellow fever and died in his care. The hospital began with 10 patients and could hold about 80 until World War I, when Walter Reed expanded dramatically. The center accommodated 1,800 to 2,000 patients during the war, and many temporary buildings were constructed around the old hospital. Walter Reed began gaining prominence in the 1920s, with the start of its graduate medical programs and the beginning of what became regular presidential visits. One of the first: Calvin Coolidge's son developed a blister on his foot from playing tennis on the White House lawn without wearing socks and was admitted to the hospital. "Even as early as the 1920s, the president's family was coming to Walter Reed," said Walter Reed historian John Pierce, who worked as the chief of medical staff and various other positions at Walter Reed for 16 years. The hospital swelled again during World War II to hold close to 3,000 soldiers, many with blast injuries and orthopedic wounds. Walter Reed began to take in famous patients from the era, including Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall and MacArthur, receiving national and international attention due to those in its care. "It was in the press much as it is today with the war that's going on now," Pierce said. The current hospital was built in 1972 and admits thousands of patients a year in about 5,500 rooms. Showing its age The nine-member base closing commission on Thursday endorsed much of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's broader plan to streamline support services across the Army, Navy and Air Force. In many cases, it voted to merge programs scattered around military facilities across the country to centralized locations. However, it postponed until today votes on the most contentious Air Force base closings. The commission signed off on several recommendations to merge education, medical, administrative and training programs, although it made adjustments in some cases. The Defense Department is trying to achieve what it calls "jointness" _ the services combining their strengths, rather than working separately _ to save money and promote efficiency. The panel must send its final report to President Bush by Sept. 8. The president can accept it, reject it or send it back for revisions. Congress also will have a chance to veto the plan in its entirety, but it has not taken that step in four previous rounds of base closings. If ultimately approved, the changes would occur over the next six years. The commissioners, meeting in Arlington, Va., voted 8-0, with one abstention, to close the facility over the objections of local politicians. Care at Walter Reed, which has treated presidents and foreign leaders as well as veterans and soldiers, is considered first-rate but the facility is showing its age, the commission said. "Kids coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, all of them in harm's way, deserve to come back to 21st century medical care," said commission Chairman Anthony Principi, former Veterans Affairs secretary. "It needs to be modernized." Almost every president in recent memory has visited troops at the hospital, and former presidents George Bush, Richard Nixon, Harry S. Truman and Eisenhower have all been patients. Now, nearby residents must begin worrying about what the government will do next with the campus. New development could be good if the surrounding community is consulted, said Councilman Adrian Fenty, who represents the area. "But that said, the majority of people still feel we should fight to keep it," he said. "It has represented stability. It represents the good things about the federal government in the district." Information from Cox News Service, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and the New York Times was used in this report.