In the history of North Omaha more than a dozen hospitals filled the community. Contrary to modern healthcare, for at least 50 years these hospitals were operated for charity and kindness. This is a history of the Omaha Swedish Mission Hospital, later called the Omaha Evangelical Covenant Hospital, located in North Omaha from 1906 to 1938.
In the mid-1870s a successful Omaha businessman named John McCreary (1832-1908) built an Italianate mansion at 3706 North 24th Street. His estate was located across the street from the Clifton Mayne (1855-1919) estate, which was eventually owned by John Redick (1828-1906). This was a posh location, and McCreary’s estate was covered with orchards and wide, broad lawns cultivated from the prairie broken to build the mansion.
The Swedish Mission Covenant Church was a Christian congregation that believed in service for their countrymen around the world, including in young Omaha City. In 1905, a group of private investors who were part of the church established a new institution called the Omaha Swedish Mission Hospital at 3706 North 24th Street in the nascent Kountze Place neighborhood.
Buying the former home of local pioneer John McCreary, the hospital was launched to serve the larger community. Over the next two decades, the institution became a landmark in North Omaha. With fifteen rooms in three wards, in 1919 they built a $100,000 addition that added a three story building on the west side of the original mansion. The hospital treated 600 patients annually throughout the 1920s.
During the so-called Roaring ’20s, the hospital was part of a successful hub of cultural success in North Omaha. The neighboring Omaha University opened next door in 1908 and grew exponentially for the next twenty years. A commercial hub grew at the northeast intersection of North 24th and Pratt Street including a grocery store and Mama Mac’s Hash House diner, along with the huge Immanuel Baptist Church on the southeast corner. The surrounding Kountze Place neighborhood only started losing fashion in 1919 when white flight sent locals packing, but throughout the decade everything was okay around the hospital.
When it needed to be reorganized, the Swedish Mission Hospital transitioned into a new organization in 1924 and secured support from the Nebraska and Iowa Conference of the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church. That’s when the Swedish Mission Hospital became the Evangelical Covenant Hospital. In 1925 the hospital board launched a $500,000 fundraising committee with a goal of finishing construction of a complete facility, including expansion of their “pre-cancer clinic,” a pediatrics wing and the attached nursing hospital. While that construction campaign didn’t take off, there were steps ahead though. In 1928, the newspaper anxiously proclaimed “Work of overhauling the entire plant has started at the Evangelical Covenant Hospital… Terrazzo floors are being laid, new plumbing fixtures and other new equipment are being installed.”
In a vote of confidence for its future, the Evangelical Covenant Church continued renovating the hospital, building a large addition and renovating the existing hospital in 1931. A second new wing was built on Pratt Street, and other improvements brought the cost to $132,000. The church was feeling bold, and that same year they proposed buying out the neighboring Omaha University campus after their board began talking about moving to another part of the city. The university board turned down the offer though.
However, the Great Depression hit the congregation hard and pummeled the hospital as well. Fewer patients and a big mortgage debt throughout the 1930s led to the Evangelical Covenant Hospital hemorrhaging money. It couldn’t stay open. A last minute bid to save the it didn’t work and the institution had to close. The Security Mutual Insurance Company of Lincoln foreclosed on a $75,000 mortgage and it closed permanently.
According to a 1980 Omaha World-Herald article, “Its school of nursing operated from 1906 to 1937, graduating a total of 269 nurses.”
In 1938 the insurance company sold the hospital to the Salvation Army for $50,000. They moved their Hospital for Unwed Mothers there and renamed it the Booth Memorial Hospital. The hospital and a senior care home operated there until 1966, when the Salvation Army abandoned the building. It was demolished in 1975 and later replaced with a new Salvation Army facility, which stands on the original location at the northwest corner of North 24th and Pratt Street today.
There are no historic markers or plaques at this location today.
Special thanks to John Peterson for his contributions to this article.
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MY ARTICLES ON THE HISTORY OF HEALTHCARE IN NORTH OMAHA
GENERAL: Segregated Hospitals
HOSPITALS: People’s Hospital | Salvation Army Hospital | Immanuel Hospital | Provident Hospital | Swedish Mission Hospital
PEOPLE: Dr. William W. Peebles | Dr. Craig Morris | Dr. John A. Singleton, DDS | Dr. Aaron M. McMillan | Dr. Matthew O. Ricketts | Dr. S. Edward Gilbert | Dr. Wesley Jones
RELATED TOPICS: Lead Poisoning
Listen to my podcast on the History of Hospitals in North Omaha »
MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF N. 24TH ST.
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES: 24th and Lake Historic District | Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church | Carnation Ballroom | Jewell Building | Minne Lusa Historic District | The Omaha Star
NEIGHBORHOODS: Near North Side | Long School | Kellom Heights | Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects | Kountze Place | Saratoga | Miller Park | Minne Lusa
BUSINESSES: 1324 North 24th Street | 24th Street Dairy Queen | 2936 North 24th Street | Jewell Building and Dreamland Ballroom | 3006 Building | Forbes Bakery, Ak-Sar-Ben Bakery, and Royal Bakery | Blue Lion Center | Omaha Star | Hash House | Live Wire Cafe | Metoyer’s BBQ | Fair Deal Cafe | Carter’s Cafe | Carnation Ballroom | Alhambra Theater | Ritz Theater | Suburban Theater | Skeet’s BBQ | Safeway | Bali-Hi Lounge | 9 Center Five-and-Dime | Jensen Building
CHURCHES: Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church | Pearl Memorial United Methodist Church | Immanuel Baptist Church | Mt Moriah Baptist Church | Bethel AME Church | North 24th Street Worship Center
HOUSES: McCreary Mansion | Gruenig Mansion | Redick Mansion
INTERSECTIONS: 24th and Lake | 24th and Pratt | 24th and Ames | 24th and Fort | Recent History of 24th and Lake | Tour of 24th and Lake
EVENTS: 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition | 1899 Greater America Exposition | 1913 Easter Sunday Tornado | 1919 Lynching and Riot | 1960s Riots
HOSPITALS: Mercy Hospital | Swedish Covenant | Salvation Army
OTHER: Omaha Driving Park | JFK Rec Center | Omaha University | Creighton University | Bryant Center | Jacobs Hall | Joslyn Hall | Harlem Renaissance
RELATED: A Street of Dreams | Redlining | Black History in Omaha | North Omaha’s Jewish Community | Binney Street | Wirt Street
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