December 28, 1918 – A story that will continue for
some years reaches a turning point on this date as the United States War
Department passes on an opportunity to purchase the hospital that lumber dealer
Edward Hines is building on the site of a former speedway near Maywood. Secretary of War Newton Baker says, “…The war
department has no right to spend money which has been appropriated to it for
temporary war uses in making permanent additions to the military establishment,
but that if the congress wants us to establish a permanent military hospital in
Chicago the Speedway will then be considered, but that as a war emergency it
obviously is not necessary.” The hospital, at this point half-finished, is
surrounded by “a mushroom growth of mystery, hints of bribery, accusations and
counter accusations.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 29, 1918] Among other things realtor Milan M. Hitchcock,
the former postmaster of Berwyn, vanishes without a trace in mid-November after
he tells his family he is headed to Chicago to discuss land values around the
Speedway with a detective representing the Hines interests. According to the paper, “It developed during
the investigation of his disappearance that he had received a telegram from a
war department official months before asking for a valuation on the land
surrounding the Maywood speedway. The
one he made was far below the price asked by Hines for his hospital.” In early October the War Department informed
Hines that it had never formally authorized the hospital that he had begun in
memory of his son, who was killed in France as World War I came to an end. At that
point Hines began a lobbying effort to get the government to bend to his
wishes. The lumber dealer apparently
engaged in an extensive campaign against the hospital complex being completed
at Ft. Sheridan, railing against the lack of safety in the wooden buildings of
that facility, touting the fireproof construction of his own. Influential Chicagoans by the thousands
received circulars deriding the Fort Sheridan complex. Ads were placed in newspapers carrying that
message to a wide audience. The story didn’t
end there; plenty more was to come before the United States Senate voted in
1920 to appropriate 3.2 million dollars to assume ownership of the hospital,
provided Hines kicked in $1.6 million.
Construction began again in spring of 1920, and the first patient was
admitted to the new facility on August 8, 1921. The above photo shows the hospital as it waited for someone to make a decision about what would happen to it.
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