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The sixty-patient Iroquois Memorial Hospital at 87
Market St. (later designated as 23 N. Wacker Drive)
was formally dedicated in December, 1910. The first
floor of the 20' x 81' four-story building was used
as an ambulance station, the second floor as a
dispensary, and the third floor as an operating
room.
Maude Jackson, mother of Viva who
had lost her life in the Iroquois Theater fire, was director
of the hospital's Women and Children's department.
Richard T. Crane Jr., who lost two cousins in the
fire, was the honorary president. Health
commissioner William A. Evans (1865–1948)* accepted the hospital on
behalf of the city.
Sculptor Lorado Taft presented a model of a memorial tablet to be made of bronze installed in the new hospital. Cost for establishing the facility as of December 1910: $50,000. The Iroquois Theater Memorial Association contributed $25,000. The city signed a thirty-year $1,800 lease on the building ($56,000 in 2022).
The hospital was initially staffed by Dr. Matthew
Karasek (1876–1954)† and three nurses, including Karasck's wife Daphne Stella Robinson (1886–1962). Head nurse, with two assistants, was Mrs. Emma E. Jones. Only emergency
cases were to be handled, including
hydrophobia/rabies. (The Iroquois Memorial Hospital treated one hundred cases of hydrophobia in its first eight months of operation, despite a dog containment ordinance instituted in 1896 that had halved annual hydrophobia deaths.)
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The hospital treated 250 victims of the Eastland
disaster and in 1918 established a venereal disease
clinic. From its opening until 1921 it treated over 16,000 simple
wounds, 916 burns, 3,100 pet bites, 500 crushing
injuries, 574 epileptic emergencies, 82 cases of
drug addition, 22 cases of insanity, 1,345
fractures, 292 dislocations, 809 stuff-in-eye,
performed 13,133 surgical procedures, performed
2,473 typhoid vaccinations and 7,829 smallpox,
treated 9,599 cases of tuberculosis, 8,488 of
syphilis, 1,6282 of gonorrhea, took 570 specimens
for typhoid testing and administered 1,158 influenza
vaccinations.
Ironically, the fire escape steps on the side of the
building duplicated one of the problems with the
steps at the Iroquois theater. The stairs passed
above and in front of windows from which flames
would pour during a fire, giving escapees a choice
of passing through a blaze or jumping.
The hospital closed in 1935 when the Chicago City
Council declined to continue the funding. For some time it had operated with inadequate staffing and funding. Some
Iroquois Memorial Association members objected but
others agreed with the Council's assessment that
ambulances made it possible to offer timely service
to the area at less cost than maintaining the
facility with its staff of nineteen doctors and
nurses. The building was demolished in 1951.
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