Glen Lake Sanatorium, a tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 treatment center serving Hennepin County in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, opened on January 4, 1916, with a capacity of 50 patients. In 1909, the Minnesota State Legislature had passed a bill authorizing the appointment of county sanatorium

Sanatorium

A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...

 boards and appropriating money for the construction of county sanatoriums. Glen Lake Sanatorium was the fifth of fourteen county sanatoria that opened in Minnesota between 1912 and 1918. The sanatorium had its own post office, and the mailing address was Glen Lake Sanatorium, Oak Terrace, Minnesota, until the surrounding area was incorporated into the City of Minnetonka.

Timeline

1916: The Glen Lake Sanatorium originally consisted of three stuccoed buildings: A cottage for patients (later known as the East Cottage), an administrative building, and a heating plant/laundry.

1917: A fourth building (known as West Cottage) doubled the capacity.

1921: A eight-floor brick administration building opened and the patient census increased to almost 300.

1922: A detached four-story Children's Building could house up to sixty children—many of whom had been exposed to tuberculosis in their home and had parents undergoing treatment in the main buildings. The building was financed by the Citizens' Aid Society in memory of Lenora Hall Christian.

1924: A building boom greatly expanded the sanatorium campus. An addition housing a bakery and new kitchen linked the 1916 and 1921 administration buildings. A seven-floor East Wing was added and the sanatorium could serve 490 patients. Two residence buildings were constructed. A nurses' residence built north of the main campus also housed other female staff. A power plant and a residence for male employees were built across the road from the campus to the south (present-day Eden Paririe).

1925: The West Wing opened. The capacity was increased to 600. The Christian family funded the Glen Lake Children's Camp

Glen Lake Children's Camp

Glen Lake Children's Camp is a former children's camp for victims of tuberculosis. The camp was part of the Glen Lake Sanatorium on the border of Minnetonka and Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Although the main sanatorium buildings were demolished in 1993, the children's camp portion remained intact...

 on Birch Island Lake, a short distance south of the main sanatorium. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.


1934: An addition to the East Wing added surgical suites, occupational and therapy rooms, and classrooms. This building was the second to be financed by the Citizens' Aid
Society. Former offices in the other buildings were converted to patient rooms and the final capacity of Glen Lake Sanatorium was 680 patients.

1936: The peak of the tuberculosis epidemic in Hennepin County occurred. The Glen Lake Sanatorium's population exceeded 700, with patients in hallways on gurneys and porches enclosed and transformed into wards. In 1936, the average stay by a patient at Glen Lake was 538 days.

1961: Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....

 had all but eliminated the need for extended stays in a sanatorium. Hennepin County leased the Glen Lake Sanatorium campus to the State of Minnesota. The state's Department of Public Welfare converted the sanatorium to a psycho-geriatric nursing home to serve aging residents of its state hospital system.

1990: The state closed the nursing home when the Department of Human Services (formerly DPW) moved to a decentralized system of care.

1993: The entire campus, excepting the children's camp which is located in Eden Prairie, was razed. The Glen Lake Golf and Practice Center operated by Three Rivers Park District

Three Rivers Park District

Three Rivers Park District is a "special park district" serving the suburban areas of the Twin Cities metro including suburban Hennepin, Carver, Dakota, Scott and Ramsey counties...

 now occupies the site.

Treatment

The Glen Lake Sanatorium was constructed on the Trudeau Sanatorium model, established at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium

Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium

The Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium was a tuberculosis sanatorium established in Saranac Lake, New York in 1885 by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau. After Trudeau's death in 1915, the institution's name was changed to the Trudeau Sanatorium, following changes in conventional usage...

 in Saranac Lake, New York

Saranac Lake, New York

Saranac Lake is a village located in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,406. The village is named after Upper, Middle, and Lower Saranac Lakes, which are nearby....

 by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau

Edward Livingston Trudeau

Edward Livingston Trudeau, M.D., M.S., D. Hon., was an American physician who established the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium at Saranac Lake for treatment of tuberculosis.-Biography:...

. The fresh-air-and-bed-rest treatment of tuberculous patients often meant open windows, even during Minnesota winters. Sun therapy, called heliotherapy, was the other essential element of early treatment at Glen Lake. The 1921 Administration building and East and West Wings featured "deck houses" or uncovered porches running the entire length of the buildings' top floors. Patients would lie in beds entirely exposed to the sun's rays, wearing minimal clothing. Patients' rooms on other floors had floor-to-ceiling triple-hung windows that would slide up and allow beds to be wheeled onto small porches.

In 1922, Glen Lake Sanatorium doctors first adopted and performed a surgical procedure known as artificial pneumothorax

Pneumothorax

Pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the chest between the lung and the chest wall. It may occur spontaneously in people without chronic lung conditions as well as in those with lung disease , and many pneumothoraces occur after physical trauma to the chest, blast...

, which collapsed the lung

Lung

The lung is the essential respiration organ in many air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart...

 affected by pulmonary tuberculosis. Collapse inhibited the proliferation of tubercle bacilli and stimulated the formation of scar tissue that controlled the disease. Another method, called extrapleural thoracoplasty, involved removal of portions of several ribs to collapse the chest wall. Phrenic nerve

Phrenic nerve

The phrenic nerve originates mainly from the 4th cervical nerve, but also receives contributions from the 5th and 3rd cervical nerves in humans....

 interruption was introduced to Glen Lake in 1924. This paralysis of the diaphragm

Thoracic diaphragm

In the anatomy of mammals, the thoracic diaphragm, or simply the diaphragm , is a sheet of internal skeletal muscle that extends across the bottom of the rib cage. The diaphragm separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity and performs an important function in respiration...

 reduced movement of the affected lung.

The collapse era was followed by chemotherapy

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....

. Streptomycin

Streptomycin

Streptomycin is an antibiotic drug, the first of a class of drugs called aminoglycosides to be discovered, and was the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis. It is derived from the actinobacterium Streptomyces griseus. Streptomycin is a bactericidal antibiotic. Streptomycin cannot be given...

, a World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 development, was readily available by 1949. Isoniazid

Isoniazid

Isoniazid , also known as isonicotinylhydrazine , is an organic compound that is the first-line antituberculosis medication in prevention and treatment. It was first discovered in 1912, and later in 1951 it was found to be effective against tuberculosis by inhibiting its mycolic acid...

 came into use in 1952 and, together with streptomycin, shortened patient stays from years to months.

Related books and movies

Minnesota author Frederick Manfred

Frederick Manfred

Frederick Feikema Manfred was a noted Western author.Manfred was born in Doon, Iowa. He was baptized Frederick Feikes Feikema, VII, and he used the name Feike Feikema when he published his first books...

 was a patient at Glen Lake Sanatorium from 1940 to 1942. While there he met his future wife and fellow patient, Maryanna Shorba. Manfred later fictionalized his stay in the book Boy Almighty, published under his given name of Feike Feikema.

Dr. Harry Wilmer, coincidentally a roommate of Frederick Manfred at Glen Lake Sanatorium, wrote Huber the Tuber which was published by the National Tuberculosis Association in 1942. It was used in educational campaigns against tuberculosis.

The opening black and white sequence of Untamed Heart was filmed at Glen Lake Sanatorium shortly before it was demolished. In the movie, it represented the Catholic orphanage in which Christian Slater's character grew up. The bedside scene was filmed in the Children's Building and the other scene took place in the main first-floor hallway of the Administration Building. At the time of filming, the working title was "Baboon Heart."

The video documentary From Beginning to End: Glen Lake Sanatorium and Oak Terrace Nursing Home was produced in 1990 as a tribute to the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Sanatorium. The video, produced at Paragon Cable Studios by Steve Perkins, Mary Krugerud, and Colleen Spadaccini, is available for viewing at the Hennepin [County] History Museum.

"A Girl at a Tuberculosis Sanatorium" recounts the story of Theresa Ledermann, who was 13 years old when she entered Glen Lake Sanatorium for what turned out to be a four-year stay.

San Memories, a collection of photographs and oral histories, was published in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the opening of Glen Lake Sanatorium.