Drawings: Docket No. 2-134; 36 Sheets; top sheet/survey sheet--25"L x 37"W. Remaining 35 sheets are 26"L x 39"W. Note: Because the Federal government supplied some funding for building St. Monica's, you will see "Federal Works Agency, Public Buildings Administration" on some of the drawings
Condition Report:
Historical Note: Phoenix Memorial Hospital/Memorial Hospital has been serving the south and central communities of Phoenix since 1934 when Father Emmett McLoughlin founded St. Monica's Mission; the state of Arizona's first maternity care clinic. Fr. McLoughlin opened the clinic in an old barbershop next to St. Monica's Mission. In the early 1940s, St. Monica's Board of Directors began planning for a 50-room hospital. Soldiers were returning from the war and needed treatment. The Federal government approved some funding for St. Monica's in 1942, but the bulk of fundraising fell upon the minorities who would use the facility. Latinos responded in the same spirit with which they had built earlier churches and community buildings. Through fundraising activities and personal donations they raised $9,000 to buy a 14-acre cotton field south of Buckeye Road. St. Monica's Hospital was completed in 1944. Its nursing school opened in October of 1944 and became the first interracial nursing school west of the Mississippi River. In 1949, St. Monica's was renamed Memorial Hospital.
Date Original1942-1943Date Range1940s (1940-1949)Permissions and ReuseThis material is the property of the Phoenix Museum of History.
