en Tampa received a charter in 1907, but did not own the building or the hospital. The owner was El Centro Asturiano de la Havana, A corporation under the Laws of the Republic of Cuba. The Hospital At a meeting on March 24, 1902, Dr. G.H. Altree volunteered to be medical director for the new club. He offered the use of his clinic and sanitarium to Centro members in need of medical attention. By 1903, the society had grown so large that hotel space was leased to keep up with the growing medical needs until the first Covadonga Sanitarium was opened in 1905; it boasted 54 beds. In 1927, a Second Covadonga Hospital was opened. Keeping with the strongly Catholic membership of the club, both buildings were named after the Virgin of Covadonga, an appearance of the Virgin Mary associated with the Iberian Reconquista. In 1956, the Centro Asturiano Hospital, Inc. was chartered and all facilities transferred to the new corporation. This was done so the hospital could qualify for federal funds and grants from private corporations. Cemeteries Two cemeteries were established for members of the Centro Asturiano and their families. The "Old" Centro Asturiano Cemetery was established in 1904 after the cemetery land was donated for the club's use by the city of Tampa. The club had inquired about the possibility of buying the land but it remains owned and maintained by the city. It is located in the Ybor City neighborhood at 2504 E.21st Avenue (not in Tampa Heights, as was previously reported.) Among the 601 interred at the Old Centro Asturiano Cemetery is club founder Antonio Gonzales Prado, who was buried there in 1904. In 1942 the much larger Centro Asturiano Memorial Park was established. It is located along Tampa's eastern border, just outside city limits and immediately north of the Grant Park neighborhood at 5400 East Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Here, over 2,300 deceased are buried or laid to rest in the mausoleum, which was added in 1970 and subsequently enlarged in 1998. Among them is U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Baldomero López, who gave his own life to save fellow soldiers during the Korean War, a sacrifice for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. López's valor is remembered with several monuments, including a state nursing home, a military resupply ship, and a nearby Seffner school which are named in his honor,