Get ready to journey back in time with today's #WaybackWednesday! Check out this glimpse of St. Joseph Hospital nestled at Berry and Broadway Streets in Fort Wayne. Dating all the way back to 1930, this vintage gem is straight from the Harter Postcard Collection in our Community Album.
Dan Baker in 2017 replicating an uncredited c. 1966 photograph that had been taken from the St. Joe Hospital heliport. Then St. Joe CEO Kenneth Jones had graciously squired us up to the landing pad so that we could include the "before and after" images in our book “Fort Wayne Through Time”. None of us will be making that trip again!
In the midst of a medical emergency, we often take for granted the availability of a hospital. However, for the first 75 years of Fort Wayne’s existence there was not hospital within city limits. This all changed in 1868 with the establishment of all three major hospitals in Fort Wayne, including St. Joseph Hospital. The history of the hospital begins with the building of the Rockhill House in 1838 by William Rockhill. After struggling along the Rockhill closed in 1867 and was bought in 1868 by Bishop John Henry Luers (first bishop of the Fort Wayne Diocese) for the sole purpose of establishing a hospital. Due to the large German-speaking population in the diocese, Bishop Luers asked Saint Maria Katharina Kasper to send some sisters from the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, a German religious order, to come and staff the hospital. Over the years St Joseph Hospital developed into a 9-story facility with over 400 beds, providing care to thousands each year. The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ owned and operated St. Joseph Hospital, from their arrival in 1869 until 1998 when they sold the hospital to Quorum Health Group. A 153 year old tradition of care came to end in 2021, with the completion of the new Lutheran Downtown Hospital. St. Joseph Hospital, both the name and building, disappeared from Fort Wayne in 2023 with the completion of the razing of its former campus. #sociallyhistory
It's #waybackwednesday! Take a look at these then and now photos from our Community Album, courtesy of the Daniel A. Baker collection. These photos show the St. Joe Hospital in Fort Wayne as it appeared in 1920 and 2017.
It's #waybackwednesday! Take a look at these interior photos of St. Joseph's Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana courtesy of the Harter Postcard collection in our Community Album.
1838 - St. Joseph Hospital located in the former 65–room Rockhill Hotel begun in 1838 by William Rockhill, a famous Ft. Wayne politician. It was unsuccessful due to its distance from the business district and main railroad lines.
1867 - The Rockhill House is purchased by Bishop Luers for $52,000.
2017, September 20 - Lutheran Health Network today announced plans to build a replacement facility for the current St. Joseph Hospital, which has been in the same location since 1869. This will be the first time in more than a century a new hospital will be built in the central city. Copied from Lutheran Health will replace St. Joseph Hospital with new facility downtown published September 20, 2017, and a timeline through 2015 in St. Joseph Hospital has a long history of care published September 21, 2017 in
The News-Sentinel newspaper. Photo from article posted on Twitter by Downtown Fort Wayne.
A May 2, 1916 newspaper article about a pear tree planted in 1842 by Johnny Appleseed was still bearing fruit on the hospital property.
With Lutheran Health Network’s St. Joseph Hospital closing Nov. 13 when the new Lutheran Downtown Hospital next door opens, the former facility will be demolished next year. The hospital, 700 Broadway, Fort Wayne, has a long history in the city. Copied from Nov. 12 - A brief history of St. Joseph Hospital by Mary Anne Gates For Business Weekly Nov 12, 2021.
November 13, 2021 a new Lutheran Downtown Hospital opened replacing the Saint Joseph Hospital which will be torn down and converted into parking spaces for the new hospital.
The Spirit of St. Joe: Legacy of St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne has three short videos St. Joseph Hospital: The Origins, The Poor Handmaids' Presence, and Continuing the Mission of the Poor Handmaids and a copy of the 10 page "Rockhill's Folly" Site now St. Joseph's Hospital by Sister Mary Aletha starting on page 19, May 1926 of the Progress edition of
The News-Sentinel newspaper published November 12, 2021 by 21AliveNews.com.
The Demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital photo album at Christopher Crawford: Documentary Photography states: Founded in 1869, Saint Joseph Hospital was the oldest hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It closed in November, 2021 and demolition began in 2022. Because of its location in a crowded area of the city, the hospital is being slowly broken apart with hydraulic excavators. This is a common method of demolishing houses and other small buildings, but it is rare to see excavators used on a ten story building that occupies an entire city block. Originally a Roman Catholic hospital, Saint Joseph was sold years ago to a big for-profit company that also owns Lutheran Hospital and Dupont Hospital in Fort Wayne. The company built a new, much smaller hospital one block over on the corner of Main Street and Van Buren Street to replace the aging Saint Joseph Hospital. The Saint Joseph name was not kept; the new hospital is called "Lutheran Downtown." The former Saint Joseph Hospital site will become a parking lot for the new hospital.
Back in 2021 I was hired by Lutheran Hospital to photograph St. Joe Hospital before it was torn down. I did that, and then decided to document the steps of the demolition all the way to the very last night.
The images were good back then, but I've decided to completely re-edit the set. I've learned a lot more about editing, plus the software (Lightroom Classic) has advanced as well.
The entire set has around 150 images, so it's going to take me a minute or two. Here are a few that I've worked on so far.
Get ready to journey back in time with today's #WaybackWednesday! Check out this glimpse of St. Joseph Hospital nestled at Berry and Broadway Streets in Fort Wayne. Dating all the way back to 1930, this vintage gem is straight from the Harter Postcard Collection in our Community Album.
