Hospital

History

The military provided some of the best medical care in America. Soldiers and American Indians in the area benefited from inoculations and emergency treatment by the fort’s surgeon. The Hospital, a mirror image of the Stone Barracks opposite it, expressed the importance of medicine in the Army. Surgeons were men of science, and charged to carefully record the weather and natural features of the area. In its early years, the Hospital also housed a library, school and the surgeon’s quarters.

The Hospital served in its original capacity only until 1839, when the Shops building was expanded into a new post hospital. From then until its demolition in 1904, it was offices, though during the Civil War it again briefly served as a hospital. In 1878, when many of the fort’s original buildings were demolished, the offices were doubled in size with a frame addition in the rear.

Today

The Hospital houses an exhibit on Army medicine on the frontier; a recreation of surgeon Nathan Jarvis’ 1830s quarters; and furnished, living-history exhibits in the post library, the surgery, the hospital steward’s quarters, the ward room and the hospital kitchen.