THE PEST HOUSE

Many thanks to Audrey Kuhne, a volunteer at the Service League of Hennepin County Medical Center,  for much of the following information.

The Minneapolis Small Pox Quarantine Hospital ("The Pest House"), was situated on land that belonged to the City of Minneapolis.  The 1914 and 1926 maps shows that the City of Minneapolis owned the area between Kipling and Joppa, Minnetonka to the Milwaukee Road tracks.  The official address was 4105 W. 31st. Street.

The hospital was associated with Minneapolis General Hospital, the City's charity hospital, which over the years has developed into the Hennepin County Medical Center. The hospital sent its patients with smallpox to this outpost to either get well or die; those who succumbed were buried in the adjacent Bass Lake Cemetery, aka "Potter's Field,” located on the northern part of the property.

1871

Minneapolis established a building for small pox patients only, located just outside the present City limits in St. Louis Park. Very little can be found on this facility, except in passing. On March 9, the President of the Hennepin County Medical Society, Dr. A.E. Ames, wrote a letter telling doctors that no patients with contagious diseases may be admitted to the new Cottage Hospital (later called St. Barnabus) "as the city itself already has a pest-house outside the city limits."

1884

After the original site burned down, the present site was established "in an isolated place" further inside the Village limits. This land was possibly purchased from Nugent and McCoy, who are shown as owners of the land on an 1874 map. An 1889 map show the property belonging to the City of Minneapolis.

1887

It was apparently unclear whether the responsibility for the Pest House belonged to the Minneapolis Board of Health or the City Physician. On November 18 of 1887, it was moved that the Board of Health be instructed "to cause the Pest House to be placed in a proper condition under the supervision of the Board of Health for the reception of patients at a cost not to exceed $500." This resolution was referred to the Committee on Health and Hospitals with power to act. (Page 809 of City Council Proceedings)

On an undetermined date shortly afterwards, it was moved "That the city pesthouse be placed under the immediate charge of the City Physician, and he be instructed to attend all patients therein, and so all other contagious diseased city patients." This resolution was referred to the Committee on Health and Hospitals. (Page 850 of City Council Proceedings)

1888

On February 17, The Standing Committee on Health and Hospitals made its recommendation: that the Minneapolis "Board of Health be provided with the proper means for placing the Quarantine Hospital and its grounds in a proper condition, and that in the future the Board of Heath may be held responsible for the proper care of patients placed there..." (Page 984 of City Council Proceedings)

1892

In a classic show of hindsight, on December 5, 1892, the Village Council passed an ordinance prohibiting “the erection or maintenance of hospitals or pesthouses within St. Louis Park for the treatment, harboring, or care of persons sick from infectious or contagious diseases and prohibiting the sending, bringing or coming into [SLP] of persons so afflicted.

1914

On January 1, the supervision of the "quarantine hospital for smallpox" was transferred from the Minneapolis Health Department to the City Physician after a vote of the Minneapolis City Council.

At their meeting on October 26, 1914, the Commercial Club agreed to work with the Village Council to remove the Pest House. Adjoining property owners were Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Curtis.

December 30, 1914: An article from the Minneapolis Journal reports:

St. Louis Park citizens are demanding that Minneapolis discontinue its smallpox quarantine hospital and adjoining pauper burial place in that village on the ground that the hospital is a health menace, as homes are being built near it, and that the burial place is not properly conducted and licensed as required by law. The move follows proposals by Dr. C.E. Dutton, city health commissioner, that provision be made for smallpox patients in the new contagious building at the city hospital [the West Wing, finished in 1912] and that a crematory be built for the disposal of bodies of paupers. Burt H. Carpenter is chairman of the St. Louis Park Commercial Club committee appointed to protest to the city council. That bodies have been buried two and three feet deep and in long trenches and left uncovered in the potter's field in other winters and other charges were made by committeemen...

1915

On April 22, the Village Council requested the State Board of Health to confer with the Health Board of Minneapolis relative to the burial of paupers in the Quarantine Hospital grounds to the end that same be discontinued.

1916
The house at 4401 Minnetonka Blvd. was built, right next to Potters' Field.  In the 1940s it belonged to the Whalen family. 

1917

The Minneapolis City Physician was given a choice of employing a new matron at the hospital or to make plans to abandon the building. The latter plan was adopted, and space was made for smallpox patients at the old Contagious Building at the City's Hopewell Hospital.

1918

The Pest House was closed. Caretaker John O. “Jack” Johnson rented a house on the property. People referred to "Johnson's Pest House" and his children as the "Pest House Johnson Kids."

"Pest House Johnson Kids," @ 1923

1921

A series of at least six photographs were taken of the grounds on August 2, which showed that the buildings were still standing, although the grounds look deserted and overgrown. A cornfield is also visible.

1922
Unbeknownst to them, Ida and Andy Williamette built their house at 4421 Minnetonka Blvd. (at the corner of Lynn), next to the Pest House Potters' Field.  In an article in the Dispatch dated August 6, 1953, the Williamettes said that the cemetery covered an area of about four square blocks and was completely grown over by tall grass and weeds.  There were no gravestones.  The Williamettes' house was torn down in 1961 and replaced with apartments. 

1927

The Board of Public Welfare minutes in April indicated that the building was sold.

The following resolution was passed by the St. Louis Park Village Council in May:

WHEREAS the City Council of Minneapolis has ordered that the bodies interred in the property formerly used as a quarantine hospital be removed from said property and have further ordered that said bodies be cremated and WHEREAS it is to the advantage of the Village of St. Louis Park to have these bodies removed from the Village limits, Be It Therefore resolved that the Village Council of the Village of the St. Louis Park do hereby approve of the action of the City Council of Minneapolis and permission is hereby given to the City of Minneapolis to remove said bodies.

(Before 1934)

As the construction of Highway 7 began, there was some unfinished business: Potter's Field. Children watched in fascination as men from the Minneapolis workhouse, under armed guard, dug up the poorly interred corpses, stopping to pick the gold out of their teeth. Andy Williamette, who lived next door, remembered one woman to stood by for two days, waiting to get a ring that had been worn by a relative buried there.  Before they were taken away on wagons, the bushel baskets full of bones were stacked on the spot where the garage at 4401 Minnetonka Blvd. stands today. Bob Whalen remembers that "Work slowed on the original exhumation when my grandfather, who had an odd sense of humor, mixed with the working men and told them that they were digging up plague victims – the workers walked off the job and had to be coaxed back."

What happened to the bones of these poor souls?  A published volume on Minnesota cemeteries indicated that the remains were reinterred at Layman's Cemetery (now known as the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, located at 2945 Cedar Ave. So.), but a second edition deleted that information, and the cemetery superintendant says that the bodies were not interred there. Was Potter's Field really "Bass Lake Cemetery"? Were the bodies indeed cremated? The search continues for the final resting place of the former residents of Potter's Field.

1947-48

During the installation of the water line for the five large apartment buildings (variously called Park Point and Burning Tree on tax records) that now occupy the site, the dragging equipment dredged up portions of wood containers, clothing, and even some human remains. This discovery was reportedly hushed up by the builder of the apartments, who suspected that the secret in the dirt below might dissuade potential renters of the apartments above. The apartments are bounded by Minnetonka Blvd. on the north, Joppa Ave. on the east, Highway 7 on the south, and a line midway between Lynn and Joppa on the west.

1950
In an article in the November 21, 1950 Echo about how St. Louis Park has changed over the last 30 years, it was written, "A few old timers can still remember Dr. Burns, a woman doctor, wearing a black dress with a long train, perched on the seat of a wagon, twice as long as the average, with her patient placed at the opposite end of the wagon to avoid contagion."

1988

Some of the dead had not reached their designated final home, as renovation work at the apartments yielded human remains – on October 31. An archaeologist determined that they remains consisted of two male jaw bones and a bone fragment from an infant’s leg bone. First thought to be from an ancient Indian burial place, it turned out to be the remains of a hapless victim of some long-cured disease. Who knows if the ground below doesn't play host to yet more of St. Louis Park's more unfortunate guests from the Big City?

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This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.