The Children's Hospital of Michigan is one of metro Detroit's most beloved children's organizations. This stunning building, on the northeast corner of Farnworth and St. Antoine streets, was once its home.

The Children's Free Hospital Association was formed in 1886, holding its first official meeting and adopting its articles of association, constitution and bylaws on Dec. 29 of that year. It was dedicated to "the suffering children of the poor, absolutely without cost and without the delay and red tape which makes admission to some so-called charitable institutions so cruelly difficult to obtain," the Detroit Free Press wrote Jan. 20, 1887.

The driving force behind the effort was Mary L'Hommedieu Ledyard, wife of Henry B. Ledyard, president of the Michigan Central Railroad. A number of prominent Detroit names would join the association's board of the years: Lothrop, Alger, Chittenden, Buhl, Brodhead, Walker and McMillan, among them.

Initially, Children's operated as a hospital within a hospital, with a ward of 18 beds on the southern end of Harper Hospital, which donated the use of the space and provided food for the children. All of its medical staff were volunteers, and the nurses were students of Harper's training school that served as part of their education. Detroiters were able to sponsor a bed in the hospital for $150 a year, about $5,300 in 2024 valuation, when adjusted for inflation. "There should surely be no lack of support for a charity so simple, practical and noble," the Free Press added.

But as Detroit's population grew, so did the need for larger facilities for the city's sick children. In January 1892, the D.M. Ferry & Co. sold a 200-by-120-foot lot on the northeast corner of Farnsworth and St. Antoine streets to the Children's Free Hospital Association for $10,000 (about $355,000 in 2024).

In the interim, the hospital moved in 1891 into temporary quarters in a brick house at the corner of Fort and Seventh streets, located at what was then 336 W. Fort St. (present-day 1300 W. Fort St. following the citywide renumbering of the city's street addresses in 1920). The hospital provided "comfort and relief of the suffering little ones," the Free Press wrote Jan. 13, 1895. "Many of these children come in frightfully neglected, lame, deformed, requiring the best surgical care, months of steady nursing and the tenderest consideration. When they leave they are often entirely cured, able to cope with the hardships of poor homes and forever benefited by the treatment received in the Children's Free Hospital."

But the facility was small, with room for only 30 to 40 kids at a time. In 1892, the hospital treated 219 children; four years later, it was 222.

Hiram Walker, who made his fortune with his liquor distillery, put forward $125,000 (about $4.8 million in 2025) on the condition that he got to pick the architect, the name and the location. This new building would allow "many more children can be administered to and the beneficent undertaking will have room to grow and spread.

The Free Press reported May 21, 1893, that architect Mortimer L. Smith was working on designs for the hospital. It's unclear what happened - perhaps Walker was unimpressed with Smith's ideas - but the final design came off the drafting tables of the Boston firm of Rantoul & Andrews.

Meanwhile, Mary Ledyard died March 30, 1895, before the fruits of her effort were fully realized.

M. Blay & Son was hired as the contractor on the project in mid-June 1895, and work started right away. By that December, the work on the outer walls was completed and plasterers and carpenters were working on the inside.

The hospital opened June 16, 1896, with a formal reception at 11 a.m. The public was invited to check it out from 10 a.m. to noon and 4 to 7 p.m. The moment "adds to Detroit's many excellent public institutions one that will prove an inestimable blessing to the afflicted little ones who, more than all others, demand tender treatment and faithful care," the Free Press wrote the following morning. "The consciousness of the comfort this gift guarantees to suffering children is the rich reward the givers of it will realize. The attention now paid to the health, comfort and instruction of children - the founding of institutions, the inauguration of fresh air schemes and the numerous waif and relief enterprises - indicate a quickened appreciation of the value of early aids and influences."

The handsome structure was faced with Roman brick from Ohio, trimmed with brownstone and topped with a slate roof. Above the main entrance the name of the hospital was chiseled into stone. On the patient wings were balconies with arched openings. The T-shaped building was five stories tall, and "fitted with every modern appliance for the care of the sick children for whom it was designed," the Detroit Free Press wrote June 30, 1895, in previewing its opening.

"Besides being a model home for the sick, it will ever stand as a monument of Mr. Walker's generosity," the Free Press wrote Dec. 29, 1895. "The big building stands like a monster snow plow, pointing toward Frederick Street, its two wings pushing off diagonally, one toward the angle formed by Antoine and Farnsworth streets, the other in a southeasterly direction."

The business end of this "monster snow plow," the main entrance, was on the St. Antoine side. The building was about 100 feet long and had wings extending more than 70 feet from either side. The building was designed to allow for additions to be tacked on for when the time called for it. The main building housed the doctors, superintendent and nurses; the wings housed the patients, with the girls in one and boys in the other.

The ground floor held the departmental offices, bathrooms, storerooms and the like, as well as the nurses and doctors dining rooms. A corridor ran the length of the building. At the rear of the building was the ward for contagious patients.

The stone steps leading up to what was called the first floor (though really was the building's second) opened into a large vestibule. Upon entering, to the right was the office, and to the left, a reception room. Off the reception room was a children's playroom. A committee room was in the far northwestern corner of the building, and elevators were also in the rear.

The patient wings had ample windows for fresh air, believed at the time to be a main cure for many ailments. The nurses for each wing had their quarters on the third floor of each wing. The building's roof was to be turned into a roof garden that children could be taken out onto.

"It will make a large and comfortable home for the sick and injured poor children of the city," the Free Press continued. "It will give the (Children's Free Hospital) Association opportunity to extend its good work as it has not had facilities for doing in the old and rather cramped quarters. ...

"The poor children of Detroit for many years to come will have reason to be grateful to the benefactor who has made it possible to erect such a magnificent and noble building consecrated to so noble a purpose."

As advances in medical care made the 19th-century structure outdated, a new annex was built, and then a replacement. The hospital underwent a series of renovations inside and out, in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1965. But just a few years later, it was decided to pull the plug rather than another building permit. A new Children's Hospital, built on St. Antoine Street, is now part of the Detroit Medical Center complex.

A demolition permit for the hospital was issued April 28, 1971. Bethel Nonprofit Housing was issued a building permit for the site on March 18, 1974, and a housing development sits on the site today.