St. Francis Hospital and Starling Medical College, c. 1900-1910Starling Medical College, leased as St. Francis Hospital from 1865 to 1955, was a medical education and treatment facility in Columbus, Ohio. The building was constructed from 1849 to 1852 for Starling Medical College, and it opened, unfinished, in 1850. Its teaching hospital was taken over by the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis in 1865, who operated it as St. Francis Hospital until 1955. In 1956, the hospital was demolished to be replaced with a new building for the next-door Grant Hospital (now known as Grant Medical Center).

The building has been described as the first teaching hospital in the United States. It was also the first hospital in Columbus, the only hospital from 1852 to 1886, and from then until its closure and demolition in the 1950s, it was the oldest hospital in the city.

Description

Drawing used in the 1849 and 1850 catalogues of officers and students of the college, before the building was completedThe building was located at 311 East State Street, at the southeast corner of State and Sixth streets in what became Downtown Columbus. It was designed by New York architect Richard A. Sheldon. Sheldon had designed the nearby Salmon P. Chase house around the same time, for Dr. Francis Carter, one of the founders of the new Starling Medical College.

The building was once lauded for its architectural elegance and unique design. It was a four-story, steepled building in the Gothic Revival style. A 1910 publication, The Buckeye Capital Before the Camera, described its architecture as Norman in style, and resembling a Rhenish castle.[32] The building was predominantly made of brick, with cut stone ornamentation. It was described by Bill Arter as "literally encrusted with medieval ornament and crowned with castle-like towers". It cost $55,000 to build, and measured 125 feet wide and 138 feet tall, to the top of its tallest tower. The interior featured a spiral staircase which wound upward over five flights.

Sketch of the building used in 1853 and later catalogues

Originally, much of the building was devoted to education, including three large lecture rooms, a library, museum, chemical laboratory, anatomical room, and an amphitheater. The hospital took up the west wing and eight rooms in the center of the building, holding 40 beds. In 1899, the St. Francis Hospital buildings contained three amphitheaters, several laboratories, a library, and a museum. About two-thirds of the main building was used as a hospital at that time, leased to the Sisters of St. Francis. In 1906, the first floor held an old lecture room, ante-rooms, the library, students room, and office of the registrar. The second floor held the general chemical laboratory with a private laboratory and professor's office. The third floor held the museum, and a lecture room and physiology laboratory were on the fourth floor, connecting to the hospital's surgical amphitheater, used as a clinical lecture room by several departments.

From 1897 to 1955, the southeast corner of the hospital block held the Laboratory Building, including the State Street Free Dispensary. It was a separate building, four stories tall with a basement, with two floors for patient care, and a laboratory on the top floor. It was the only general dispensary in Columbus, owned and maintained by the Ohio State University. The facility was a popular place for residents to obtain free advice and treatment. In 1906, the building held the dispensary in its basement, an ante-room, anatomical preparation room, and lecture room on the first floor, with the lecture room including most of the second floor. The third floor was divided into labs for histology, pathology, and bacteriology, with private rooms for the instructors. The dissecting room or anatomical laboratory took up the entire fourth floor.

From 1915 until 1957, the grounds of the hospital and school contained a monument to Samuel Smith, one of the founding educators at the newly-formed Starling Medical College. The work, the Dr. Samuel Mitchel Smith and Sons Memorial Fountain, was completed in 1880 and stood at the intersection of Broad and High streets, Downtown Columbus's busiest intersection, until relocating to the hospital site in 1915. As St. Francis Hospital was torn down in 1957, the statue was moved to the Columbus Health Department property. Today it stands outside Harding Hospital at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center.

A nurses' home for the hospital stood directly behind it, on Town Street, for many years; construction began in 1929. A proposal for a patient building for the site was released in 1923. The original plans were for a five-story building of Italian Renaissance style which would also include a home and chapel for the Sisters of St. Francis. The building plans included a skybridge and roof garden. The building was designed by McDonald, McDonald & McDonald of 67 E Eighth Avenue in Columbus.

Lecture Room in 1906Physiological Laboratory in 1906Surgical Amphitheater in 1906Ward in St. Francis Hospital in 1906

 

History

The first Wesley Chapel building (1846-1885) housed the Willoughby Medical College when it first moved to Columbus

Establishment and planning

A building described as the "original building of the Starling Medical College, now part of St. Francis Hospital, at Sixth and State streets."The organization that commissioned the building was originally Willoughby University of Lake Erie, operating in Willoughby, Ohio, from 1834 to 1846. The university and town were both named for Westel Willoughby Jr. (1769-1844), a doctor and politician. In the 1840s, the college faculty was split over the practice of exhuming and dissecting bodies from local cemeteries. Four professors left to join the Western Reserve College. The dean of Willoughby and the three remaining clinical faculty moved to Columbus along with most of their students.

The college moved to Columbus in 1846, becoming Willoughby Medical College of Columbus. It was given a new charter on January 14, 1847, and opened for instruction that year with 150 students. Without time or money for constructing temporary arrangements, the college rented two existing buildings. These included the northwest corner of Gay and High Streets (fronting on Gay, at the rear of the lot, where the St. Charles Block was later built). The building was the Clay Club House, a shanty moved from the site of the Grand Opera House. The Clay Club Room had been built by the Whigs for their presidential campaign for Henry Clay in 1844, and was one of the only buildings with a capacity for 150 people in Columbus (the Neil House and churches were others). The building was remodeled to hold an amphitheater for 150 people as well as an anatomical room. Additional space was in the basement of the Wesley Chapel, a half-block north.

Starling Medical College then planned for its permanent building. The land, as late as 1848, was a swamp stretching from near Fourth Street to Sixth Street, south of Broad. There were several large elm trees, and it was home to noisy frogs, a breeding ground for mosquitos, and a popular skating area in winter. The remote area on the eastern edge of the swamp was chosen by the medical college as there were no near neighbors to object to the building, and because the land was cheap. The "frog pond" likely was gradually filled in as houses were built eastward from Fourth Street to the site of the medical college.[2]

Efforts to construct the medical college building began after December 18, 1847, when Lyne Starling (pronounced "Line"), one of the city's founders, donated $30,000 to the college's trustees toward the construction of a new education and hospital building; he later donated $5,000 more. He stipulated that his friends Drs. Francis Carter and Samuel Mitchel Smith be made teachers at the college. Starling's donation was reportedly the largest given by a resident of Ohio for such a purpose at that time (larger gifts to Kenyon and Oberlin colleges were not from Ohio residents). The donation, a deed of trust, was accepted by the college trustees on January 2, 1848.[34]

The faculty voted to change the college's name in honor of Starling, and he accepted the honor and was pleased, though he did not request the name change. The Starling Medical College charter was granted on January 28, 1848. After plans from numerous architects were examined, the college chose Richard A. Sheldon to design the building. Sheldon estimated its cost at $35,000, the amount gifted by Starling. One of Sheldon's assistants was George Bellows (1829-1913), who was working in New York City and came to Columbus to help with the construction of the college building. Bellows later designed or built numerous Columbus landmarks, and raised a family there. His son, also named George Bellows, became a prominent artist.[33]

The lot at State and Sixth streets was secured in the winter of 1848. The building's cornerstone was laid in spring 1849, accompanied by an address delivered by Reverend Dr. Hoge. Foundations were set in March of that year. It opened, unfinished, in the fall of 1850, with classes held in that year and the next. Stairways were incomplete, hallways unplastered, the library, museum, and hospital departments were without floors, and the windows were without sash and glass. Starling's donation had run out before the building could be completed, as Sheldon had severely estimated the cost to build, so Starling's heirs donated $3,000, and their friends donated nearly the same amount, and the trustees borrowed $10,000, and thus the building was largely completed in 1852. The hospital was completed in 1852 as well, though potions of the building remained unfinished, reportedly until within ten years of 1897.

It was called the first teaching hospital in the United States, a title sometimes given to the Long Island College Hospital (1856) or the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (1874). It was also the first and only general hospital in Columbus for years. At the time of its construction, other than state institutions (e.g. the Lunatic Asylum of Ohio), the only two hospitals in the state were the U.S. Marine Hospital in Cleveland and a commercial hospital in Cincinnati.

Early history of the hospital

Starling Medical College (1), Holy Cross Church (2), the first St. Francis Hospital (3), location purchased for a hospital in 1864 (4)From 1857 to 1860, William Dean Howells lived in rooms in the building; Howells was a reporter for the Ohio State Journal and later became a renowned author. The rooms were originally intended as boarding for medical students, but became used as more general male boarding.

Prior to the Civil War, the college was influential throughout Ohio in education about abolishing slavery. During the war, enrollment was depleted, but regained in number immediately after the war's end. In 1865, on February 17, the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis were established in the building to operate its hospital. The sisters had purchased a 99-year lease on the part of the building originally designed for a hospital, and their operation, and later the entire building, became known as St. Francis Hospital.

The sisters' organization, known in Germany as the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, was founded in Aachen, Germany, in 1845, and began serving German emigrant communities in New York, New Jersey, and Ohio in the 1850s. In 1858, the sisters arrived in Cincinnati, operating a successful hospital, St. Mary's, beginning in 1861. Columbus physicians William McMillen, Starling Loving, and John W. Hamilton applied for them to establish a hospital in Columbus. The sisters arrived in the city in January 1862, and on March 14th they purchased a small house and lot on Rich Street, just east and across from Holy Cross Church, from Frederick and Rosalia Walter. They operated this facility from March 19, 1862 until 1865, offering home nursing care. The building was deemed too small, as it was constantly full. It only had a capacity for 24 patients, and applications for care often exceeded the capacity. Sisters from the Cincinnati Mother House purchased empty lots at Main and Sixth streets for a new hospital in March 1864. John Hamilton suggested the sisters operate Starling Medical College's hospital; the sisters then agreed to lease the State and Sixth street hospital. The terms, signed on February 17, 1865 and made effective April 15, were for the western two-thirds of the building, for a term of 99 years, and at a price of $10,000. The terms specified allowing persons of any class, race, sect, or "world condition", with a preference to the poor. The sisters then began holding fairs to raise funds for the lease as well as for alterations and furnishings, and sold the Rich Street house and Main Street lots. In June 1865, 19 patients were moved from Rich Street to become St. Francis Hospital's first patients. At the end of the year, the hospital had 61 beds, and had admitted 164 patients.

1921 map showing St. Francis's location opposite Grant Hospital (founded in 1900)

C. 1930s view of the hospital

In 1875, professors from the college resigned and organized the Columbus Medical College. The effect of resignations negatively affected the school's attendance until 1879. Also in 1875, Starling Medical College granted the sisters use of some of their apartments and a large lecture hall. In 1886, Hawkes Hospital opened in Franklinton; until that time, St. Francis was the only general-purpose hospital in Columbus. The Franciscan sisters opened another hospital further east in Columbus in 1890, St. Anthony's Hospital (now Ohio State East Hospital).

The hospital interior was remodeled in 1891. In 1897, a large laboratory building, holding a surgical amphitheater, was constructed for the hospital. In 1907, the college merged with the Ohio Medical University, becoming Starling-Ohio Medical College. The newly merged school used facilities from both schools - the St. Francis Hospital building as well as the Protestant Hospital and Clinic, on Park Street.[23] Another major improvement to St. Francis was made in 1913.

In August 1915, a small expansion project was announced, adding six additional rooms to the badly-crowded hospital. The project would convert two gables at the west side of the hospital into square towers, conforming with the Norman architecture, and made according to plans by noted Columbus architect David Riebel. The announcement also described that the octagonal tower on the west side of the building was just reconstructed, retaining its original shape.[1]

The college, now the OSU College of Medicine, used St. Francis Hospital until Hamilton Hall and Starling-Loving Hospital were constructed on the university campus between 1926 and 1926. In 1924, a laundry facility was completed and the kitchen was enlarged. The main entrance was enlarged in 1926, and in 1927 a donation allowed for the purchase of X-ray equipment. Operating rooms were remodeled and large wards were remodeled into smaller rooms. In 1929, the cornerstone for the nurses' home was laid (plans were released in 1923, with work originally set to begin in 1924). The building opened in 1931, providing classrooms, an auditorium, and private rooms for nurses, attached to the main building via a second-story walkway. In 1930, a new emergency room was added on the site. The St. Francis School of Nursing was accredited in 1931, and its first formal graduation was held in 1934.

Redevelopment

Main facade of the building, published 1956, showing numerous additions and alterations

From 1940 to 1950, the hospital had 123 beds. In this time, in 1948, fundraisers were made by Columbus Catholic churches to raise money to expand and improve Columbus hospitals. St. Francis was not included, as the site was too restricted to build expansions. In 1949, the hospital celebrated 100 years of service, citing the date Starling Medical College opened in the building.

The hospital announced its closure in 1954, made effective on June 30, 1955. It had served 290,325 patients and 209,832 emergency cases over the length of its history. The reasoning given for its closure was over its obsolete buildings, the removal of its medical college, and the lack of funds with rising costs. The hospital facilities merged into the expanding St. Anthony's Hospital, still operated by the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis. Grant Hospital purchased the site from the Ohio State University for $175,000. The St. Francis School of Nursing, at 308 E. Town St., was to continue operation, eventually to be operated under St. Anthony's Hospital administration, which never had its own nursing school.[31]

In 1955, the Ohio General Assembly voted to allow the sale of the building and property to Grant Hospital, which had a "pressing need" for more patient beds. Grant had announced plans to demolish the building and proceed with a $2.2 million expansion plan. The building was demolished beginning in November 1956 by S. G. Loewendick & Sons, at a cost of $25,000. In November of that year, the Loewendick contractors advertised the sale of building materials from the hospital, including structural steel, fire escapes, doors, windows, brick, and stone.

Grant Medical Center in 2021; a historical marker is situated at the bottom-center of the image

The property was to be turned into a parking lot for approximately a year before Grant Hospital's new structure was to be built, with bricks from the old walls used to help fill in the old foundation, and many planned to be saved to build a small chapel on the grounds of St. Anthony's Hospital. The new 400-bed wing of Grant Hospital opened on the site around 1957. The building has a cruciform shape and makes the maximum use of the small lot.

An Ohio Historical Marker is situated outside Grant Medical Center near the southeast corner of Sixth and State streets. The sign denotes the history and significance of Starling Medical College and St. Francis Hospital.[30]

Gallery

1887 map1891 map1901 map1921 map1951 map

 

References

  1. "Remodeling Hospital". The Columbus Dispatch, August 28, 1915, p. 3.
  2. Arter, Bill. "The Frog Pond". The Columbus Dispatch, January 31, 1965.
  3. Hunter, Bob (2012). A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus: Finding the Past in the Present in Ohio's Capital City. Ohio University Press. pp. 224-226. ISBN 978-0821420126. OCLC 886535510.
  4. "Centennials and Timeline of Medical Education in Central Ohio". The Ohio State University, July 30, 2012.
  5. "Historical Sketch of the Medical Colleges of Columbus". The Columbus Medical Journal.
  6. "Building Materials". The Columbus Dispatch, November 21, 1956.
  7. "Save the Pieces". The Columbus Dispatch, December 28, 1958.
  8. "Ohio State Medical School Prepares for 100th Birthday". The Columbus Dispatch, July 23, 1933.
  9. "Diamond Jubilee of St. Francis Hospital Celebrated". The Columbus Dispatch, April 12, 1940.
  10. "Public Is Invited to Inspect St. Francis Hospital Next Thursday Afternoon". The Columbus Dispatch, November 13, 1938
  11. "St. Francis Sale OK Due In House". The Columbus Dispatch, June 8, 1955.
  12. "St. Francis Hospital". The Columbus Dispatch, June 4, 1950. pp. 126, 133, 138.
  13. "Columbus Vignettes: City Cross-Section". The Columbus Dispatch, December 20, 1964.
  14. "Starling Medical College." The Columbus Dispatch, March 25, 1897.
  15. "Catholics to Participate in Drive for Columbus Hospitals." The Columbus Dispatch, February 8, 1948.
  16. "History and Heritage." The Columbus Dispatch, June 13, 1971.

  17. "St. Francis Hospital Growth Described By Dr. John Upham." The Columbus Dispatch, January 28, 1931.

  18. Paulson, George. "Celebrating 100 Years, 1914-2014: And Weren’t We Here Earlier?" House Call. The Ohio State University Medical Heritage Center, March 2014, vol. 16, no. 2.

  19. "Hundreds Treated at Dispensary During Past Year." The Columbus Dispatch, September 12, 1921.

  20. Sullivan, Martha. "Franciscan Sisters of the Poor." The Columbus Dispatch, January 20, 1963.

  21. Cole, Charles Chester (2001). A Fragile Capital: Identity and the Early Years of Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State University Press. ISBN 9780814208533.

  22. City of Columbus: the Capital of Ohio, and the Great Railway Center of the State. Columbus Board of Trade, 1885. OCLC 506224134.

  23. Pinta, Emil R. A History of Psychiatry at The Ohio State University, 1847-1993. The Ohio State University Department of Psychiatry, 1994.

  24. "St. Francis Hospital Plans Addition on Town Street." The Columbus Dispatch, June 10, 1923.

  25. "Start Razing St. Francis Hospital." The Columbus Dispatch, November 15, 1956.

  26. "Hospital Comes Down." The Columbus Dispatch, November 22, 1956.

  27. "Sixtieth Annual Announcement and Directory of the Alumni." Starling Medical College, 1906.

  28. "St. Francis Hospital Celebrates its 100th Anniversary." The Bulletin, Franklin County Historical Society, June 1950, vol. 2, no. 7.

  29. Schlegel, Donald M. "The Early Days of St. Francis Hospital in Columbus." Catholic Record Society Bulletin, July/August 1983, vol. 9, nos. 8-9.

  30. "21-25 Starling Medical College and St. Francis Hospital." Remarkable Ohio, Ohio History Connection.

  31. "Merger of St. Francis, St. Anthony's Will Give City New 300-Bed Hospital." The Catholic Times, September 17, 1954, p. 1.

  32. "St. Francis Hospital." The Buckeye Capital Before the Camera, New Franklin Printing Company, 1910, vol. 1, p. 21.

  33. "Bellows' dad was local architect." The Columbus Dispatch, June 3, 2014.

  34. Studer, Jacob Henry (1873). Columbus, Ohio: Its History, Resources, and Progress. J. H. Studer. OCLC 193331, pp. 263-265.

 

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