Original building for Deaconess Hospital. In 1893, the home of Major Byron Parsons, a Civil War veteran, at Mary St. and Iowa St. was converted into the first 19-bed hospital. (seen here) In 1897 this was moved to the back of the lot and a new building was built. A three-story brick hospital was completed in 1899 and was celebrated as one of the most impressive Deaconess institutions in the country. The new Protestant Deaconess Hospital had beds for more than 60 patients. It boasted three operating rooms with hot and cold sterilized water and good lighting, so that operations could be performed with the same degree of safety day or night. Additions and changes occurred over the years, to the point that by 1948 every part of the original structure was subsumed. In the early 1970s nearly all the original building was demolished to make room for a new facility, now covering some 20 city blocks. This view is looking northeast from Iowa St. and Edgar St. with the newer hospital in the background. From this home in 1884, Clara Barton of the American Red Cross directed the country's first relief program during the Great Ohio River Flood. (She was a guest of the owners of this house, Major and Mrs. Byron Parsons.) Photograph from Deaconess Hospital.