A Look Through the Windowpanes of Time 1905 ~ 2016

The following is an abridged history of the hospitals of Loma Linda Univerity

This windowpane features photos of the four healthcare institutions central to the long storied history of Loma Linda.  which served the Loma Linda community, the surrounding communities, the Inland Empire, and beyond. The photo to the left is of the Loma Linda sanitarium that stood on the hill and like a sentry standing straight and tall stood over the valley below. Constructed near the last decade of the 19th century, the sanitarium had a troubled beginning. It was first known as the Mound City Hotel, and then the Mound City Villa. the developers went bust. New investors and local physicians purchased the property with the intent of turning the property into one of the finest health resorts in Southern California. After sinking over $150,000.00, the investors touted the beautiful resort as the “queen of the plains and peer to the mountains.” Even with its splendid view and great possibilities, the venture failed. The property went on the market with the public nicknamed the little community “Lonesome Linda.” On May 29, 1905, John and Eleanor Burden secured the property for a reduced asking price of $40,000. He agreed to pay the $10,000.00 down payment in two $5,000.00 installments. For the first installment, he borrowed $1,000 on his own signature and signed the documents agreeing to pay $4,000.00, the remaining balance of the first installment, on or before July 7, 1905. The second and final installment in the amount of $5,000.00 was paid on July 26, 1905. The balance was secured by a three-year note. On September 7, 1905, John and Eleanor Burden signed over the property to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and on September 11, 1905, took ownership of the property, which was once known as Mound City.

The building in the panel second from the left is a photo of the “first” hospital, which was built after some delay in 1913, in a weed patch west of the hill and slightly north of the farm. Today, the site is known as the Basic Sciences Quadrangle, which is located on the southwest corner of Anderson and Stewart Streets. The hospital was built for a number of reasons.First and foremost, the fledgling campus needed a teaching and

clinical hospital to meet accreditation requirements. The patient census of the sanitarium was seasonal thus not predictable for a teaching environment, the private pay patients, who essentially paid more, did not appreciate being around acute and charity patients, the sanitarium patients did not like the noise coming from the hospital wing, the sanitarium setting did not meet the needs of a teaching hospital. Unfortunately, the new hospital was destined for failure. The patient census never reached a level to make the hospital profitable, the patient fees were kept to a minimum to attract “teaching patients,” and again the patients complained of the noise. This time, the noise came from the students as they made their way to classes and labs in a nearby building and institutional politics came into play. Those is high places could not agree on how the new hospital should be operated. By 1915, there was talk of building a hospital in Los Angeles to meet the clinical needs of the Loma Linda students. In 1915, the Board voted to build a hospital in Los Angeles, which is known today as the White Memorial Medical Center. The hospital in the weed patch was remodeled to meet other needs on campus until the late 1930s when the building was razed. With the hospital now in Los Angeles, the sanitarium on the hill was forced to continue on as a Sanitarium and Hospital. All was not well even though the small institution began to make money. As it prospered some of the medical staff became unhappy because “the hard-earned profits” were going to support the School of Medicine. They felt this arrangement did not allow for expansion and equipment needs.

By the end of 1930,a new Spanish-style building sat on the crown of the hill (see the photo in the second panel from the right). This new structure combined, under one roof, the needs of a Sanitarium and Hospital. In reality, however, it functioned more as a hospital. By the end of World War II, it was necessary to expand the hospital. A three-story wing was built, which included operating rooms, delivery rooms, an infant nursery, and patient rooms. The former hospital space was converted into physician offices. By the early 1960s, it became very clear to the administration of the College that it was becoming impossible to maintain a two-campus medical school with the basic sciences being taught in Loma Linda, known as the “farm” and the clinical being taught in Los Angeles, known as the “city.”

In 1962, the Loma Linda Board decided to combine the two campuses and move the Los Angeles campus to Loma Linda. Construction began soon afterward and in July of 1967, the patients were moved from the hospital on the hill to the new nine-story hospital (featured in the right panel in the above photo) built in the middle of what had been a citrus grove bordered to the north by Prospect Street, Barton Road to the south, Anderson Street to the east, and Campus Street to the west. This hospital with its clover-leaf towers has been an icon in the Inland Empire for 50 years and during that time it has expanded both in name and in size. The name Loma Linda University Hospital was changed to Loma Linda University Medical Center, and with the completion of the Children’s hospital in the mid-1990s, the name was changed to what it is known today: Loma Linda University Medical Center and Children’s Hospital.