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Fairview and 13th Street Once Was Hospital Site
| THEN: The Judge Lauck house, built in 1887, was located at 220 W. 13th Street. In 1920, it became the Polytechnic Hospital, later known as the Coffman Hospital. It was constructed on nearly one acre of land just south of the location of HPA’s Fultz house project. (Credit: reproduced from Wichita Kansas Journal of Commerce, June 1880) |
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NOW: An automobile mechanic repair shop now occupies the
site of the Coffman Hospital which apparently ceased to exist in the
mid-1940s. (Photo by D.
Churchman)
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Editor’s note: Information for this article has come from April 1920 issues of the Wichita Eagle and the January 1886 Beacon.
Yet another hospital is being built in far northwest Wichita, but multiple hospitals in our city is nothing new.
In April 1920, five doctors opened the doors of the Polytechnic Hospital, at 220 West 13th street, just three doors south of the McAdams-Fultz house.
At the time, that location was on the northwest edge of the city as well.
This was the fifth hospital in Wichita and was "the only private incorporated hospital in the city." Its doctor-owners advertised that it would receive both medical and surgical cases.
They added, "The operating room is especially well equipped with tables such as those used in the Red Cross service and a modern X-ray machine."
The 50-bed hospital was situated in a large brick house built in 1886 by Judge Lauck on nearly one acre of lawn "where convalescence have special facilities for out of door exercise."
The 52 feet long and 48 feet wide brick home was designed by architect C. W. Kellogg. Its two stories contained 10 rooms.
When it was turned into a hospital, the first floor included the women’s ward, dining room and kitchen.The operating rooms and surgical wards occupied the second floor, and what newspaper articles and advertisements called the third floor was taken by the general ward.
One would assume the "third floor" was the attic, since the Lauck house was a two story structure.
The hospital was first called the Polytechnic Hospital and was staffed by five doctors.
It was later named the Coffman Clinic, after one of its founders, Dr. John F. Coffman. The hospital apparently ceased to exist in the mid-1940s.
Coffman was born in 1882 in Iowa, graduated from University of Chicago and Ensworth School of Medicine, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and moved to Wichita from Marion, Kansas in 1920.