Fargo City Detention Hospital

The City Disease Detention Hospital in Fargo is significant as a symbol of the efforts in the community in the early 20th century to control communicable diseases, improve conditions for quarantined patients, and for its association with Frank L. Anders, the prominent North Dakota engineer.

From Fargo's early years' epidemics were common. In 1881, 1882, and 1883 there were serious smallpox epidemics. There were also outbreaks of Diptheria and scarlet fever in 1883. Typhoid fever was also endemic due to the use of Red River water. These problems led to the creation of a city health board, improved water and sewer systems, designated dumps, and the use of "pest houses" to quarantine diseased people. Improved sanitation and mass vaccinations rid the city of some diseases, but smallpox continued as a serious problem into the 20th century.

Various doctors established quarantine hospitals or "pest houses" and the city often paid to maintain them, but living conditions for the patients were terrible. Several doctors, including K.H.Millarian and Nils Tronnes, pressed the city to build a decent facility for the patients, which it did in 1910. On May 9 of that year, the City Council by a unanimous vote ratified the action of the City Board of Health to build a City Disease Detention Hospital and accepted C.H.Johnson's low bid of $15,429 to build the structure designed by city engineer Frank Anders. On October 11, Fargo voters passed by a large margin a bond issue for $15,000 needed to finish the hospital. The final cost of the building was higher, however, and totaled $21,852.52. Of this, Johson received over $18,000. T.P.Riley, who installed plumbing and fixtures, received slightly over $3,000.

Frank Anders was born in Dakota Territory in 1875. As a young man, he worked for several years in the Fargo machine shops of the Northern Pacific Railway before enlisting to fight in the Philippines where he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Spanish American War. After his return from the war in 1899, he worked at Northern Pacific shops in Montana and Utah and then for several Utah mining companies. In 1906, without a high school diploma, he enrolled at Ripon College in Wisconsin. Upon graduation, he was awarded the first scholarship given by the University of Wisconsin, where he studied civil engineering. In 1907 he went back to Utah to work as a mining engineer for two years before finally returning to Fargo where he lived for most of the rest of his life. Anders became Fargo's city engineer in 1910 and is best known for his design of the Fargo water purification system. In later years he was involved in the water systems of various other cities, was secretary and construction engineer on the Board of State Capitol Commissioners, and was active in promoting the Garrison Dam and Missouri River Diversion Project. He died in 1966.

Anders' design of the Disease Detention Hospital reflects an engineer's approach to design and the humanitarian concerns of Fargo's doctors for the conditions of the patients. For the structure of the hospital, Anders employed the reinforced concrete technology of C.A.P.Turner, an important innovator in that field from St. Paul. The city Board of Health, which along with Anders directed the construction of the hospital, probably advised Anders on how to design the building with features necessary for the accommodation of sick patients. The building has a functional plan with little ornamentation except for the Corinthian columns on the porches. The wards and other spaces within the hospital have high ceilings, and ample light, and were well equipped with facilities necessary for the treatment of quarantined patients. In a report prepared after the hospital was completed, Anders stated that the building's brick and concrete construction as well as its Terrazzo floors made it "completely sanitary in every respect." In addition, the building's relatively isolated setting, as the only building on the east half of a block, may have been another indication of its use, that of isolating diseased people.