Remnants: Prebyterian Sanatorium

There was a shame associated with tuberculosis, a justified fear of discrimination from those who were themselves justifiably afraid of infection. People who migrated to the Southwest because of TB often didn’t talk about their sickness, even decades after they had been cured; there was still a stigma that kept them quiet. Perhaps this is why, despite its enormous impact on the city’s development, the “White Plague” is often ignored in local history books, especially those written before the 1970s.

In the same way that the fact of TB's impact has been allowed to fade away, there seems to have been no real effort to preserve the old buildings of the sanatoriums themselves. It is as though, with the new availability of antibiotics and the resultant rally against the disease, people were only too happy to demolish the suddenly obsolete “sans”, replacing them with new, general purpose hospitals buildings, or warehouses, or parking lots. Who can blame them? Despite the beauty of some of the old complexes, I can readily understand why there was no lingering nostalgia, no desire to relive a time when that horrific disease held dominion over so many lives.

But somehow, a few remnants did survive, sometimes adapted to new purposes, sometimes simply forgotten in dilapidated neighborhoods. Very few remain in anything like their original form and context, most are lone buildings, or parts of buildings, divorced from their long demolished counterparts. I’ve been searching them out, and for the next few updates, I’ll share what I’ve discovered.

Presbyterian Sanatorium


The old Sanatorium complex, circa 1911. Looking south from Central Avenue.

The Presbyterian Sanatorium at Sycamore and Central was one of the largest and most successful of the early treatment centers. It was founded in 1908 by Rev. Dr. Cooper, himself a tuberculosis sufferer who saw a need for a sanatorium that would treat patients regardless of income or religious affiliation. Its first buildings were only four small cottages erected on donated land, but within a few years donations from Easterners had financed a major center for the treatment of patients. Soon, Presbyterian Sanatorium dominated Albuquerque's medical arena.



The Sanatorium Quarterly announces the Presbyterian Sanatorium's need for a research laboratory.

By the end of the 1920s, the Sanatorium was expanding again. Donations for the creation of a research laboratory were eagerly solicited in the pages of the Sanatorium Quarterly, the Presbyterian's newsletter, and soon an endowment had been secured from F.L. Maytag (of the Maytag corporation). In January of 1931, and with great fanfare, the Maytag Reserach Laboratory was officially opened. One hopeful writer in the Sanatorium Quarterly said, "We all hope to live to see the time when a cure may be discovered and as some one said at the dedication of the Maytag, 'who knows but that such a cure may be discovered here?'"



The west facing entrance of the Maytag Research Laboratory, dedicated to researching a cure for TB.

Sadly, the exuberance was not to last. In the 1930s, the Great Depression crippled all aspects of American society, and the sanatorium industry was hit hard. The river of tubercular patients who could afford to migrate to the West was quickly drying up, and worse, once-wealthy patients who had received treatments had ceased paying for their care. Additionally, charitable donations to the Sanatorium were understandably at an all time low. Although the Sanatorium had always prided itself on providing care no matter the financial straits of its patients, the fact was that it was barely scraping by itself. "Our Sanatorium is a business and we are sharing in the trials of business men who are unable to pay their bills at the end of the month. We say with others if only we could collect what is due us we could pay, but we cannot collect, therefore we cannot pay as promptly as we should," ran a 1934 article, titled "Keep Me From Sinking Down", in the Quarterly.

The situation became much worse when the Sanatorium was sued by their "benefactor" F. L. Maytag for not having honored the conditions of his "gift" of a research laboratory, namely that a certain amount of research be performed according to the Maytag Corporation's instruction. The Sanatorium Quarterly's pages were now filled with desperate pleas for financial aid, even for donations as small as "25c in coins or stamps."



An advertisement asking for donations.

Against all odds, the Sanatorium did survive this difficult time. The Depression ended, patients were able to pay again, F. L. Maytag died and his lawsuit was soon settled. Still, despite the sudden upswing, the Sanatorium was only to last another decade or so.

In 1943, the antibiotic streptomycin was first isolated, not at Maytag Research Laboratory, but at Rutgers University. This would prove to be the death knell for tuberculosis's long reign, as the drug provided the first effective treatment of the disease. Soon, streptomycin was being given to patients all over the world, and within 10 years, tuberculosis almost entirely eliminated. Sanatoriums everywhere were forced to either close their doors for good or evolve to better suit a changing world.



Modern hospital buildings loom menacingly behind the old Sanatorium, which was demolished soon after this photo.

Presbyterian Sanatorium adapted. In the 1950s, it changed its name to Presbyterian Hospital Center to better reflect its now generalized medical mission. New buildings sprang up around the old, and soon the old "san" was deemed obsolete. In 1967, most of the old Presbyterian Sanatorium buildings were demolished, and a group of high-rises sprang up in their place.



Presbyterian Hospital today, view from north of Central Avenue.

Today, the Presbyterian Hospital is an enormous complex, one that would have surely boggled the minds of the patients who once rested in the enclosed porches of small cottages on the same land. It serves any number of medical needs, and is regarded as one of the foremost hospitals in the Southwest. It's hard to believe that anything could remain from the era of tuberculosis in this modern and towering center. But, sure enough, in the southwestern corner of the complex, just off I-40's off-ramp and dwarfed by the massive buildings around it, a peculiarly out of place ornamental facade and the chimney of an utterly obsolete coal heating system testifies to the continued existence of the once crown-jewel (and near-bankrupter) of the Sanatorium: the Maytag Research Laboratory. Sadly, it's glory days are long gone, and today the crenelations of its once grand art nouveau entrance mark a "hazardous waste and trash exit" instead of a cutting edge X-ray facility. But it survives, a link anda testament to the charitable dream of Reverend Doctor Cooper.



The Maytag building's facade, now a place to unload trash and hazardous waste.




More:

Tuberculosis in Albuquerque Part 1
Tuberculosis in Albuquerque Part 2