Nostalgia & History > Remembering the Southern Pacific Hospital

In San Francisco, many many years ago, there was a 400+ bed hospital located in San Francisco at the corner of Fell & Baker Streets that was operated by the Southern Pacific Company. If you were employed by the SP and sustained a serious injury or major illness, the SP Hospital was usually where you were sent. The hospital operated from about 1908 to 1967 when it finally closed. It had replaced the original location at 14th & Mission Streets which had been damaged in the 1906 earthquake and then dynamited by the U.S. Army.

For a while, after 1967 til about 1974, it became Harkness Hospital, operated by a member of the pharmaceutical Upjohn family. Today, it is an Assisted-living center for Seniors with the main entrance on the Baker Street side. The old, elaborate entrance was blocked off. Here are a couple of memories:

"I visited a friend who was being treated at the SP hospital in the mid '60's. The hospital had a stationary steam plant that actually generated power using a couple of slide valve reciprocating steam engine driven generators. If I remember correctly, the hospital used a weird voltage for their elevators and other support equipment. I seem to remember that someone told me it was 110 volts DC. Anyway, the plant was absolutely spotless. It had Italian Tile floors and everything brass was polished. The electrical panel was marble with open busses. There were two natural gas fired boilers that furnished steam for the generators and heating/process steam for the hospital building. There was a tunnel connecting the utility plant with the main building. In the 1960's the hospital looked REALLY old compared with comparable public facilities."

Bill Kohler

"Used to go to the old SP hospital in San Francisco quite a few times with my grandfather who was going to visit some friends and fellow employees. I enjoyed watching the old-fashioned elevators with chicken wire/glass front doors where you could stand and watch the car coming or see the cables going up and down. Also, the SP had ramps between floors as I recall for transporting patients. And I also remember those ornate tile floors that Bill talked about.

My last visit was very emotional, circa 1973-'74.. My beloved grandpa was the patient that time, from a major stroke. He would just have this blank stare and couldn't speak. Times were tough--gas was being hard to get--long lines. It was hard to get over to SF to see him as often as I wanted! He was finally transferred to a place in Alameda where he passed away in April-1974. But I'll always enjoy going with him for those early day visits to the SP Hospital..

For those that don't know, SP had another medical facility on the East side of the diesel shop in West Oakland. I think they called it the "West Oakland Hospital". More of a dispensary where you could get minor care for injuries and prescriptions and such."

Ken Shattock

Any other memories floating around out there ??


Let's take a brief look back and remember !

KRK

---

---

---

Truly impressive edifice! But imagine a hospital with that many steps, and showing up with a broken leg, or rehabbing after a broken leg? Must have been an impromptu heart function test, too. === === = === JLH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/13 17:26 by highgreengraphics.

In November 1963, I was working for SP in Los Angeles and was injured in an accident. They sent me up to the SP Hospital in San Francisco on the Lark in a bedrooom. I spent about three weeks there with two broken elbows. Because of the casts on my arms, I had to be hand fed, but fortunately there was a brand new class of 54 student nurses to assist me. I asked to stay longer, but the doctors said no!!!. Damn! A great place and I had a lot of fun in that three weeks.

TIOGA PASS

When the hospital was still SP there was a nurse named "LuluBelle" Harris. She lived across the street from my family when I was a kid in the 1940s until her death some years later. She was a great cat lover and fed them nothing but the finest in meats actually meant for human consumption. Needless to say her house stunk. She was a great nurse, tough as nails, and she cared about her patients. Many a patient felt her rough personality, all to their benefit. I wonder if there is anyone still living who remembers her. The tales they could tell!!

The Rio Grande had a company hospital at Salida that still stands. I'm sure this was a common practice in the past. Are there any others that list members are aware of? Dave

I believe the Santa Fe had a hospital in Los Angeles?????

Got a bad cough? Grab some of this SP Hospital "Cough Mixture!" Mmmm!!! They don't make it like this anymore!

---

Hey Norm,

My Aunt was one of the head nurses there at that time and knowing her, she was the one who kicked you out. LOL

latl1450 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe the Santa Fe had a hospital in Los
> Angeles?????


Yes, they did. IIRC, it was in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.

IC_2024 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Got a bad cough? Grab some of this SP Hospital
> "Cough Mixture!" Mmmm!!! They don't make it like
> this anymore!

Tony Johnson in Medford has a bottle of the same stuff!

KRK

I've got a bottle of SP Lines eyewash.

My dad, not an RR employee, went in a regular hospital in his later years to remove a tiny piece of skin cancer on his ear. On the way out, he slipped on the massive steps (like the SP hospital) , fell, broke his hip. Yeah, carried back up the steps for hip surgery. Hospitals + steps = trouble!

The Santa Fe had a company hospital at Topeka Ks. where My grand father Harvey Reid died and a hospital at Albuquerque Nm.

I visited the Santa Fe hospital in Los Angeles in about 1978, used by the SP as a company hospital under agreement between the companies. Jack Stewart, an office engineer, was there to recover from some heart trouble. They did good, he came back to work until a retirement about 1993. Jack was firmly attached to his typewriter and was not tech-savvy as the computers and office machines were introduced. His retirement gift was his office typewriter, retired that same date, complete with official accounting department disposal documents. Everyone had a good laugh and I still remember him on days my computer skills fail to match the expectations of Microsoft or Adobe.

I was in the SP hospital twice in 1971 with Kidney stones. Once I was on a porch with 3 other guys one of which hired out in 1913 as a call boy and the other time in a ward that was too warm. The Rules and Regulations that I have attached I received when I hired out with the SP in West Oakland in 1970 as an extra board clerk.


WKB

---

Here is a link to a site that lists the major railroad hospitals.
Once there, you can click on the image gallery for post card
views and more.

http://railwaysurgery.org/List.htm

peddler



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/13 22:44 by peddler.

What is the former SP hospital used for today?
Great post btw.

Santa Fe had a similar setup: The main southern California Hospital in LA (Boyle Heights) and a clinic in San Bernardino near the shop complex. The LA hospital wasn't the sort of place you'd want to be for a heart transplant, but for workplace injuries and common diseases it was adequate. The hospital building is still there on S. St. Louis St.--like many old LA buildings it is a popular place for movie location work.

1 and 2) North and south ends of former Santa Fe Hospital in LA. It's across the street from Hollenbeck Park. In the old days, it was a short walk to the "R" streetcar line.

3) Lights! Camera! Action! A movie company shooting scenes reliving the 1930s. Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage." Were he to "time warp" into Southern California of the present era, he might say, "All the world's a sound stage."

---

---

---

And regarding the 110 volts DC in the San Francisco SP Hospital: This was fairly common in big cities like Chicago and New York. The original Edison lighting circuits were 110 volts DC, and many elevator systems ran on DC, because in the old days, it worked a lot better for variable speed motors. Also, the in-house power may have energized some of the lighting circuits, providing illumination if PG&E had an outage. In 1971, I stayed in a hotel in Chicago where the whole building was 110 DC, and there were stickers beside the outlets in the guest rooms warning of this fact. The only appliance in the room was a US Navy surplus electric fan (old shipboard electrical system were often 110 DC). In New York, Consolidated Edison supplied DC to downtown buildings until relatively recently, and finally told the building managements that the company would install rectifier units to power DC-using equipment (mostly elevators) so they could finally discontinue central-station DC service. After 100 years or so, Mr. Tesla's current had finally taken over completely.

speederman01 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Rio Grande had a company hospital at Salida
> that still stands. I'm sure this was a common
> practice in the past. Are there any others that
> list members are aware of? Dave

I read a great article about this hospital. It featured a gentleman who got terribly injured on the Grande and spent the next 40 some years in the hospital. Seems like he lost a leg or legs and was a great help to the nurses and other patients in the hospital.