Battle Creek Sanitarium, Battle Creek, MI
Posted by: WrightStuff
N 42° 19.549 W 085° 11.363
16T E 649185 N 4687539
The Battle Creek Sanitarium building is located on Washington Ave. in Battle Creek, MI.
Waymark Code: WM1TE2
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 07/07/2007
Views: 115
The Battle Creek Sanitarium opened in 1866 as the Western Health Reform Institute. The institute was founded on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. In 1876, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg became the medical superintendent at the sanitarium. Kellogg's many innovations included the use of radiation therapy for cancer patients and the invention of flaked cereal. The sanitarium burned in 1902; the following year a six-story Italian Renaissance Revival-style building, deigned by Dayton, Ohio, architect Frank M. Andrews, was constructed. Kellogg's brother W. K. Kellogg worked at the sanitarium for twenty-six years before leaving to establish the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company.
In 1928 the Battle Creek Sanitarium was enlarged with a fourteen story "towers" addition and dining room annex designed by M. J. Morehouse of Chicago. After the stock market crashed in 1929, business declined; the facility went into receivership in 1933. The sanitarium continued to occupy the site until 1942 when the U. S. Army purchased the buildings and established the Percy Jones General Hospital, named for an army surgeon whose thirty-year career included commanding ambulance units during World War I. The hospital specialized in neurosurgery, plastic surgery and the fitting of artificial limbs. Approximately 100,000 military patients were treated at the hospital before it closed permanently in 1953. In 1954 the building became the Battle Creek Federal Center.
--text from Michigan Historicala Marker on site
Street address: 197 N. Washington Ave. Battle Creek, MI United States 49016
County / Borough / Parish: Calhoun
Year listed: 1988
Historic (Areas of) Significance: Person, Architecture/Engineering
Periods of significance: 1900-1924
Historic function: Health Care
Current function: Government
Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
Secondary Website 1: [Web Link]
Privately owned?: Not Listed
Season start / Season finish: Not listed
Hours of operation: Not listed
Secondary Website 2: Not listed
National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed
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