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We learned from the December 23, 1919 issue of the Detroit News that the Michigan Hospital School cared for 36 children.  It was estimated that the capacity, with the addition of the Annex, would increase to 500 children annually.

According to the December 23, 1919 Detroit News, then Mayor of Detroit James Couzens chose to honor his wife’s birthday with a $450,000 donation to build an annex to the Michigan Hospital School for Crippled Children in Farmington.  The paper included what must have been an early architectural elevation of the planned annex.  As we know now, this rendering by architect Albert Kahn was not the final design.  But the final design was equally architecturally impressive.

We suspect the first hospital building on the campus, which appears on early aerial photos as a stucco-type structure, is the hospital constructed at the request of Ms. Blanche Van Leuven Browne.  Ms. Browne already operated the Van Leuven Browne Hospital School in Detroit.  The February 2, 1917 Farmington Enterprise discusses Ms. Van Leuven Browne’s purchase of Fred Goers’ farm, and indicates the Farmington hospital was to be constructed “right away.”

A later article (1922) discussing then Detroit Mayor James Couzens’ involvement with the Farmington campus and indicates this first building was operated as the Michigan Hospital School for Crippled Children.  This is also confirmed in the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Collection at Wayne State University’s Walter Reuther Library.