During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, abundant sunshine was touted as a cure for any number of physical ailments. Consequently, Arizona billed itself as “The Sanatorium of the Southwest” and actively solicited health-seekers from far and wide.
“Owing to the moderate altitude, the dry exhilarating mountain air, the blue Italian sky and the glorious sunshine,” gushed a promotional brochure published about 1912, “Southern Arizona is a natural sanatorium for those afflicted with diseases of the throat and lungs, and many are the cures effected in this climate.”
In 1900, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet celebrated the new century by opening a tuberculosis sanatorium. Located on the campus of St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson, what came to be known as the Round Building was touted as a revolutionary concept in the treatment of those suffering from the dread disease.
“Novel in its style of architecture, [the Round Building] is peculiarly adapted to the sanitary, scientific and successful treatment of tuberculosis,” read promotional literature intended to entice patients. “The sanatorium is a perfect rotunda of two stories, with an inside open court 50 feet in diameter enclosing a garden.
“All rooms open directly on spacious verandas, which surround the building on the inner and outer sides. The rooms are provided with wide double doors and large windows which allow free access of fresh air and sunshine, essentials in the treatment of tuberculosis.
“The rooms are large, comfortably and artistically furnished, and no expense has been spared to provide a cheerful home with home comforts….
“There are no inside rooms or halls in which may lodge the pernicious germ of tuberculosis, and all regulations for the preservation of cleanliness and the avoidance of infection of any kind are rigorously enforced.”
Sophisticated as it was, the Round Building competed for patients with a number of Tucson facilities — Comstock Hospital, Desert Sanatorium, Rogers Hospital and others. As the century progressed, tubercular veterans of World War I were drawn to Arizona’s sunshine, and many were treated in a complex of tent houses constructed at Past Time Park.
By the 1920s, fear of contagion spread quicker than the disease, and tubercular patients were no long regarded by Tucson promoters as a desirable source of revenue. Signs — “No lungers allowed” — went up in restaurants and other public facilities, and classified ads for employment and housing often stipulated, “No tubers need apply.”
Indigents suffered the disease as well and when hospitals turned them away for lack of funds, a tent city east of the University of Arizona campus took shape. Tucsonans kept their distance and newspapers decried the stench of death prevalent in the camp. Few of its residents were afforded medical care.
By the 1950s, when modern drugs had been developed to combat tuberculosis, Tucson’s sanatoriums disappeared from the landscape. The Round Building underwent extensive renovation and was converted to general patient use. But the end was near. In 1964, St. Mary’s directors, citing high maintenance costs, abandoned the building.
“Many patients asked for the Round Building,” Sister Mary Ester told the Arizona Daily Star in 1965. “They said it didn’t have a hospital atmosphere and it was quieter.”
More than a few Tucsonans, some who spent as long as three years fighting tuberculosis, had nostalgic feelings for the old building. “It was just like one big happy family when I came here [in 1935]. I guess it was because they stayed so long that we all felt that way.”
In April 1968, progress had its way and the wrecking ball fell on what had been a unique Tucson landmark for 68 years.
— W. Lane Rogers. Photo courtesy St. Mary’s Hospital Archives.