Hospital

History

Nearly 200 years ago 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. In its early years, the Hospital also housed Minnesota's first lending library, a 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.