What was the Battle Creek Sanitarium?
The Battle Creek Sanitarium was a Seventh-Day Adventist health resort based in Battle Creek, Michigan. Following the United States Civil War, Ellen Gould White, co-founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, felt that God wanted Adventists to “provide a home for the afflicted and those who wish to learn how to take care of their bodies that they may prevent sickness,” and “have an institution of their own, under their own control, for the benefit of the diseased and suffering” (Gomide, 2024). Under the name Western Health Reform Institute, the resort first opened on September 5, 1866, with the mission to bring Adventist views to a wider public audience. Ellen G. White, husband James Springer White, and head physician H. S. Lay formed the founding leadership of the institute.
Ten years later, John Harvey Kellogg was appointed as Physician-in-Chief of the Institute. Having received custody of the institution in poor condition, Kellogg took a scientific approach to reforming it by implementing modern equipment and medical practices. He changed the institution’s name to the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium to signal that it was a place for improving public wellness.
By 1878, Kellogg commenced the construction of a new building for the sanitarium and opened a hygienic school for the instruction of caring for the sick. Growing in renown and trust, the sanitarium expanded beyond its ties with Adventist stakeholders and doctrine, with Kellogg declaring in 1899 that the institution would be “undenominational and unsectarian” (Gomide, 2024). When asked to expound, he stated, “It means simply that [the sanitarium] is to be conducted as a medical institution…it must be carried on as an undenominational institution. It cannot give benefits to a certain class, but must be for the benefit of any who are sick” (Gomide, 2024). Nonetheless, Kellogg continued to promote the Adventist health principles of temperance, tobacco cessation, vegetarianism, and physical fitness.
By the twentieth century, the Battle Creek Sanitarium had established itself as a world-renowned medical establishment, but in February of 1902, a fire burned down a large portion of the structure. In response, Kellogg and his brother Will, founder of the Kellogg Company, raised funds to cover the reconstruction and reopening of the sanitarium by May 1903. To the promotional benefit of the institution, several influential individuals accepted invitations to spend time as patients in the sanitarium, including but not limited to Rockefellers, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, J.C. Penney, and others.
The stock market crash of 1929, met with the combined strain of John Harvey Kellogg’s declining health, marked the beginning of the Battle Creek Sanitarium’s failure. Reaching bankruptcy during the Depression, the establishment was put under receivership by 1933. The United States Army purchased the building in 1942, and the building operated as the Percy Jones General Hospital until its permanent closure as a medical institution in 1953. The following year, the complex became the Battle Creek Federal Center. It continues to operate as such, under the name Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, with the Defense Logistics Agency and Department of Homeland Security as its primary tenants (Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, Battle Creek, MI, 2024).
References
Gomide, J. Battle Creek Sanitarium (1866–1942). (2024, February 28). https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=6JG6.
Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center. (n.d.). U.S. General Services Administration. Retrieved December 7, 2024, from https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/gsa-regions/region-5-great-lakes/buildings-and-facilities/michigan/battle-creek-hartdoleinouye-fc.
The main building burned February 18, 1902 [image]. From The Battle Creek Sanitarium system: history, organization, methods (p. 14) by John Harvey Kellogg, 1908, Battle Creek, MI: Gage Printing Co.