10 Most Endangered

Built by African Americans in 1929 when Gary’s public hospitals did not admit black patients, St. John’s is vacant and accelerating into deterioration.

 

St. John's Hospital

Gary

On 10 Most list since 2010

 

 

Deterioration may soon render St. John’s Hospital unrecoverable. A significant landmark of Gary’s African American heritage, St. John’s rescue could prove a tipping point in revitalizing the city’s Midtown area, where many buildings designed and built by and for African Americans are endangered and declining.  

 

Opened in 1929, the brick building recalls an era when most public hospitals in Indiana did not admit African American patients or allow black doctors to practice. Constructed privately to serve the segregated population and originally named McMitchell Hospital in honor of its founder Dr. Frederick McMitchell, St. John’s was the most well-known of such institutions in the area. African American architect William Wilson Cooke designed the state-of-the-art hospital—a Prairie-influenced building with limestone details and a triple arch entryway at 22nd Avenue and Massachusetts Street.

 

The hospital provided previously unavailable medical services and operated with a staff of black surgeons and nurses. It continued in service long after the Gary’s Methodist and Mercy hospitals began accepting African American patients in 1930, functioning as a hospital until it closed in 1950.

 

The vacant and vandalized landmark suffers broken windows, crumbling brick, water damage—and an owner unable to invest in repairs. In the past year, an African American Heritage Grant from Indiana Landmarks funded a professional conditions assessment, and the Gary, East Chicago, Hammond Empowerment Zone is negotiating with the owner and the city to plan a future for the building.

 

        

For more information contact:

Tiffany Tolbert

Director, Indiana Landmarks’ Calumet Region Office, Hobart

219-947-2657

ttolbert@indianalandmarks.org

 

Sondra Ford

Gary, East Chicago, Hammond Empowerment Zone

219-886-9572 x 17 

sondraford@aol.com

 

Dr. Earl Jones

Professor of African American Studies at Indiana University Northwest

219-980-6704

ejones@iun.edu