Juxtapositions: “Wow, There Have Been a lot of Changes Since We Graduated!”
While photographing the construction site from the south Loma Linda Hills the other day, I ran into a Texas couple. He was an alumnus from the School of Medicine and she was a graduate from the School of Allied Health. Both marveled at the changes that had taken place, in around the campus, since they had graduated. They were astonished by the height of the hospital towers rising like sentinels overlooking the campus and the valley around. The comments about the growth of the campus gave me pause as I thought of the pioneers who founded the campus and what their reaction might be if they stood on the hill overlooking the campus below. Gone is the rural community, gone are the fruit trees, gone are the gardens, gone are the farm animals: chickens, goats, and cows, gone are the horses and buggies, gone is the Sanitarium on the hill, and gone are the dirt roads, And so this post is dedicated to them and to those who were acquaited
looking out over the valley floor with the The Mound or the Hill Beautiful dominated the campus for 113-years. It was in mid December 2018, that the steel structure of the Loma Linda University Adult Hospital tower exceeded the height of the mound.
Photo credit: The black and white period images in this post are used courtesy of the Loma Linda University Heritage Room.
This circa 1905 image was taken from the fields north of the mound. On the right of the hill is the sanitarium.
One hundred years after the previous photograph was taken, the mound remains. Gone is the old sanitarium, The towers of the existing Medical Center rises at the upper right of the image. Center left (between the trees) is the eastern wing of the old hospital.
The steel frame of the Adult Hospital tower rises above the western side of the mound. The towers of the current Medical Center are no longer in view due to the growth of the trees. In the center of the image is the eastern wing of the old hospital.
An echo from the past stands in the shadow of the new.From this angle on Pepper Drive (now known as Parkland Avenue), the Sanitarium was clearly visible on the hill at the end of the road. Back in the day, According to my late mother-in-law, photographs such as this one were used like postcards. As a little girl my mother-in-law lived with her parents on this street. She remembered her mother talking to Dr. Lyra Ernestine George, a 1901 graduate of the American Medical Missionary College, as she walked to work: “To see patients and deliver babies up on the hill.”The image to the left (circa 1992) was taken approximately one-year before the existing Children’s Hospital was opened. At the time this photo was taken the reflecting pools in the median had not been removed and construction to the main entrance of the Medical Center had not yet begun. The photo to the right was taken on September 27, 2018, when some of the GFRC panels were being hung on the north side of the podium. In this photograph the realigned front entrance matching up to the Medical Center Drive (photo left) is clearly visible. When the image at the left was taken, the project was in the make ready phase. The image to the right depicts the Children’s Hospital (left) and Adult Hospital (right) towers at their designed height. The elevation of the existing hospitals are completely obscured by the new construction.On February 07, 2018, there was excitement still in the air as the large spline beams were laid on the base isolators, and more columns were set. Soon the pit would be a memory. Indeed, one year later (February 7, 2019, the pit was just a memory. Steel filled the pit and the structure had reached its maximum height. Barton Road at Campus Street looking toward the northeast.Barton Road at Campus Street: Again looking toward the northeast from Loma Vista Drive. The skyline is changing and the southeast corner of of Campus Street and University is taking on a new look with the construction of the educational wing at the Loma Linda University Church. To make room for the new facility, the Campus Chapel (lower right) in the image to the left had to be razed to make room for the new building.
After graduate school Dennis accepted a position at Loma Linda University. He worked there for 42 years in the areas of administration and financial management, also teaching accounting and management to dietetic students at the School of Public Health. Through the years Dennis has chronicled the growth of the campus, including the construction of the Drayson Center and the Centennial Complex and the razing of Gentry Gym. He is the author of "The Mound City Chronicles: A Pictorial History of Loma Linda University, A Health Sciences Institution 1905 - 2005." dEp 09.30.2016 🔨
