Cincinnati was hit with several waves of disease in the mid-19th century. An outbreak of smallpox pushed the city to look for a new site for an infectious disease hospital, or “pest house,” away from the urban center. In 1864, they chose a house on the edge of town at Rohs Hill, where University Christian Church now stands. The home turned hospital would serve contagious patients for only a few decades. (Image: Edward Jenner Vaccinating His Son . . . Coloured Engraving by C. Manigaud after E Hamman, Wellcome Collection).

The city’s good idea took pressure off of the facilities downtown. However, several shocking news stories damaged Rohs Hill’s reputation. Missing and misplaced bodies and an outbreak of Yellow Fever made the hospital’s neighbors suspicious. They began to apply pressure on the city to move the facility to preserve their health and their property values. (Image: “St. Pancras Smallpox Hospital, London, housed in a tented camp at Finchley,” watercolor, F. Collins, 1881, Wellcome Collection.)

In 1879 city council and the hospital board pushed to move infectious patients even father out to the country. Real estate agents began scheming to buy up the land at a reduced price. Believing Rohs Hill to be irretrievably infected with disease, the board decides to close and dismantle it. The chief administrator, fearing the plan would endanager public health, snuck out in the middle of the night and burnt it down. The year was 1880. (Image: Episcopal Hospital, 1883, Walnut Hills Historical Society).