The Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers served as an attraction for both tourists and local real estate speculators. In 1906, the Pacific Branch became a stop on the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad's “Balloon Route”, a popular tour of local attractions conducted by an entrepreneur who escorted tourists via a rented streetcar, often from downtown Los Angeles to the ocean and back. In 1905, residential lots and larger tracts in the new Westgate Subdivision, which joined “the beautiful Soldier’s Home”, and which were owned and promoted by Jones and Baker’s Santa Monica Land and Water Company, were for sale. The new community of Sawtelle developed around the Pacific Branch when veterans’ families, as well as veterans themselves who were drawing relief, settled there. Most of Sawtelle thus grew up after the veterans home was established.