Saint Louis City Hospital.

The origins of the St. Louis City Hospital date back to an ordinance of the city council on July 10 1845 to build a municipal tax-supported city hospital for the city's indigent poor. The original building for 90 patients was constructed between 1845-1846 on 8 acres in the city commons bounded by Soulard Street, west of St. Ann Avenue, Lime Street, and Lafayette avenue. Additions were made over the next 10 years. On May 15, 1856, the hospital was destroyed by fire. In 1857, a new building was completed but not occupied until July 1858. During 1873-1874, a large addition was made and additional wards were added in the subsequent years. In 1896, a tornado wrecked the building and three fatalities occurred. From 1896-1905, Emergency City Hospital No. 1 (formerly Convent of the House of the Good Shepherd) was temporary quarters for the hospital at 17th and Pine. Due to overcrowding, the city bought Emergency City Hospital No. 2 or Pius Hospital at 14th and O'Fallon, and it was used for communicable diseases from 1903-1907. Between 1905 and 1907, the ward and hospital administration building by Albert Groves were completed and occupied on Lafayette Avenue between 14th, Grattan and Carroll Streets, (actually four city blocks).

City Hospital was whites only, and only in 1919 did the city offer a separate City Hospital No. 2 downtown to its non-white population. This hospital moved to the north side as the new Homer G. Phillips Hospital in 1937. In 1933, the city began a $5.5. million modernization project at the hospital with funding from the Federal Works Progress administration. Albert Osburg, who designed the Homer G. Phillips Hospital in north city also designed the master plan for City Hospital's renovation. Most prominent of the new buildings was the 13-story Tower (1942). In 1961, the new Snodgras Laboratory Building was added to a group of buildings either entirely remodeled or constructed in the prior 20 years.

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