Prospect Place: The tale of a West-Side hospital

Real estate broker James Carleton Young saw huge potential for the land when he bought Sam Johnson's farm on the west side of the Cedar River in the 1880s. He divided the land into lots, subsidized transportation to the area and began promoting the area as a place to build and live. The focal point of the neighborhood was the beautiful mansion he built at the top of the hill, Prospect Place.

Young's enterprise didn't work out as successfully as he'd hoped and he decided to move to Minneapolis. He put his mansion up for sale in the early 1900s, but no one seemed to be interested. He lowered the price, advertised free rent for the winter and even offered it for a children's home, but it remained empty.

Then, in 1913, a church-affiliated company out of Sioux City, with hospitals in Mason City, Fort Dodge and Des Moines, planned to turn Prospect Place into a sanitarium and hospital. The German Lutheran Hospital and Sanitarium Co. took out an option on the place with plans to build a 60-room hospital. The mansion would house administrative offices or a nursing home. The sanitarium also would manufacture some medicines.

The name would be changed to German Lutheran Hospital Sanitarium, but it would be non-sectarian and accessible to any accredited physicians.

The representatives of the hospital management company were attracted by the 2¼-acre grounds at Prospect Place, its remoteness from noise and traffic while still being easily accessible, and the price.

Shortly before, Young had spent several weeks in Cedar Rapids remodeling and repairing the house. Although it had cost him $20,000 to build in 1887, he had been asking $10,000 for the property in 1905.

The Lutheran group's plans apparently didn't pan out, because Dr. Margaret Sherlock bought the Young home in 1916 and converted it into Prospect Place Hospital. A 1920 Gazette article said, “No more interesting places can be found in or near Cedar Rapids than the palatial old mansion on ‘Young's Hill,' known as Prospect Place. Woven in and through its many windowed rooms, broad halls and grand staircase, its wide verandas and porticos, are romances of two generations ago and today the recollections of many of the older residents go back with the keenest pleasure to the festivities enjoyed in the old house. Interest at present centers there because of the skill, the genius and the persevering enthusiasm with which Dr. M. Sherlock has made Prospect Place the worthy institution that it is known to be, a hospital and rest cure establishment that is a home in the charm of its appointment.”

As manager of the hospital, Sherlock held rummage sales at the Montrose Hotel and garden festivals on the hospital lawn to raise money to add facilities to care for mothers and children. She also added a room there for sick or injured newsboys to use during the winter.

In 1925, Lutherans within a 50-mile radius of Cedar Rapids met at Trinity Lutheran Church and began planning and raising money to build a Lutheran hospital. When several years of fundraising didn't quite garner enough for a new building, the Cedar Rapids Lutheran Hospital Assocation opted to buy Prospect Place from Sherlock, who had married and moved to Joliet, Ill.

On June 30, 1928, the remodeled West Side Hospital opened to the public.

An article about the hospital's open house said:

“Situated on the top of Young's hill on the west side, the hospital commands a view of wooded grounds that encompass an entire city block. The old structure is picturesque and was one of the first show places in Cedar Rapids.

“The building has been redecorated and the third floor has been remodeled to prepare quarters for the operating rooms. These rooms done in white with the exception of the eye, ear, nose and throat room, which is black, contain the latest equipment of the same type that is in the Mayo Clinic at Rochester and St. Luke's hospital in Chicago. An elevator has been installed from the third floor to the basement. The maternity and nursing rooms are on the second floor."

“The hospital has a capacity of from 25 to 35 beds. There are eight private rooms furnished in different colors. The beds are of the latest adjustable type. Besides the private rooms there are men's and women's wards, capable of six beds each."

“These wards are on the first floor. An X-ray room finished in green and featuring a $4,000 machine is also on the first floor."

“The hospital is open to all doctors in good standing in the Linn County Medical Association or any other similar association.”

The Lutherans apparently weren't able to keep the hospital going, because by October 1939, Sherlock once again was the owner of Prospect Place and gave it to the Sisters of Mercy “to be used as a convalescent home, or for any purpose that would be of benefit to the city of Cedar Rapids.”

The sisters, however, were unable to pay the back taxes on the property or make the extensive repairs needed, so they let it revert to the county. They did buy it back from the Linn County Board of Supervisors for $1,500 in 1943, but as Mercy Hospital grew, the sisters didn't want to spend the money for extensive updating and sold it to the city in 1945.

The towering Victorian mansion was dismantled in February 1946 to make way for 16 cottages for veterans returning from World War II. With building materials in short supply, the lumber from the mansion was salvaged for use in construction.

The remaining remnant of Prospect Place is the smaller mansion James Young built for his architect, W.A. Fulkerson. It still stands among the Young's Hill residential neighborhood at 1510 Ninth St. SW.

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