General Hospital

2315 Locust Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64108, United States

Kansas City’s General Hospital, which was located at 2315 Locust, no longer exists although it lasted until 1992 when it was finally completely demolished.

When Hemingway was a reporter for the Star, the General Hospital was experiencing a number of intertwining crises involving staffing shortages, bed shortages, ambulance breakdowns, and insufficient funding, all during outbreaks of smallpox and meningitis in the city. There were no antiseptics at the hospital, and no chemicals to develop X-ray plates. In addition, according to Hemingway, the politicians on the Health Board had grafted $27,000 since the start of the year, the equivalent of over half a million dollars today. Things were unbelievably rotten there, Hemingway told his mother.

For more than two months during the winter of 1917-1918, Hemingway investigated these crises and wrote stories about them for the Star. In March he told his mother that he had been barred from entering the hospital by the Manager. His boss at the Star told him to disregard that. Changes were made by the Health Board, with dismissals of personnel, followed by an increase in the number of beds in a smallpox isolation ward, and a plan was devised to limit the number of ambulance breakdowns. Hemingway was proud of the effect his reporting had.

Next … Hemingway’s Uncle Tyler’s House