ALEXANDRIA, VA–Here’s a postcard Lillie Mulholland, who lived at 429 South Fairfax Street, sent in 1918, when the Alexandria Hospital was located at the corner of Washington and Duke Streets.
Alexandria Hospital is the second oldest hospital in Virginia (the Naval Medical Hospital in Portsmouth, Va was first in 1830), tracing its roots back to 1872 when a group of local women led by Julia Johns. According to Wikipedia, a sailor had arrived at the port of Alexandria with typhoid fever, sparking fears of an epidemic, but there was no place to quarantine or treat those with the disease. The infirmary originallly opened in early 1873 at the corner of Duke Street and South Fairfax Street in a townhouse, but moved many times before settling on Duke and Washington in 1917. It remained there until 1962 when the current location on Seminary Road opened.
