This image features the three-story, Queen Anne Style Ranke House at the southeast corner of Madison Street and Terry Avenue on First Hill. First Hill was the residence of choice in the 1890s for elite Seattle residents who wanted to escape the fast pace of downtown. This mansion was built by German immigrants, contractor, and socialites Otto Ranke (1842-1892) and Dora Duval Ranke (1848-1919) in 1891, although the family sold the mansion to Moritz Thomsen in 1901. The last occupants of the mansion were student nurses training at Columbus Hospital, the building seen here directly behind the mansion. The Ranke House was razed in 1957 to make room for a seven-story addition to the Columbus Hospital; this addition was itself closed in 1990 and demolished in 1994.

Columbus Sanatorium (later Cabrini Sanatorium, then Cabrini Hospital in 1924) was converted from the Perry Apartment Hotel in 1916 by Mother Maria Francesca Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917). The Cabrini Hospital operated until 1990, when rising costs and the hospital’s policy of providing services to patients regardless of their ability to pay, forced the decision to close.

Austin Seward (1885-1974) worked as a local photographer in the early 1920s for Pierson’s studio, a commercial photography firm.

Handwritten on negative: Pierson Photo Co.; Nurse's Home, Columbus Hospital

Caption information source: http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/12359
Caption information source: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040903&slug=pacific-pdorp05