Veterans Memorial Park 13000 Sayre St., Sylmar

Size: 96 acres

Facilities: Art gallery, picnic and group camping areas, Frisbee golf, disabled adults center

Hours: 8 a.m.-sunset

Information: (818) 367-1957

Mary Dahlsten remembers the peaceful setting of the San Fernando Veterans Hospital.

“They used to call it the ‘country club of veterans hospitals,’ ” said Dahlsten, 73, who has lived half a mile from the 96-acre site of the hospital complex in Sylmar since 1948. “I remember the patients would sit out on the lawn during the day and feed the squirrels.”

The peaceful setting was suddenly shattered on Feb. 9, 1971, at 6:01 a.m., when a 6.6 earthquake destroyed almost all of the buildings in the complex. Forty-nine patients, nurses and other hospital workers were killed.

Today, except for a memorial plaque embedded in a rock, there is no indication that this was once the site of a tragedy. The ruins of the hospital were long ago hauled away and much of the land re-landscaped and turned into Veterans Memorial Park.

The park’s most notable man-made feature is Century Gallery, a small art space in one of only two structures on the site to survive the earthquake. Hours of operation for the gallery, which features work by local artists, are severely restricted because of funding limitations.

“We used to have a lot of programs but it’s mostly just a park now,” gallery curator Priscilla Nielsen said as she gazed out the window of her office. “I look at the trees and hills and grass and try to imagine what it was like when the hospital was here.”