Children’s Scarlet Fever Ward, ca. 1897. Below, Interns and nursing staff in front of Erie County Almshouse, 1897. 13 The roots of the hospital that became ECMC can be traced back to the early 20th century and the Municipal Hospital on East Ferry Street, which was designed for the care of smallpox patients. Although compulsory smallpox vaccination had been proven effective for more than a century, the disease had not been completely wiped out and there were still isolated cases in Buffalo. Then in 1909, a scarlet fever epidemic struck 3,000 Buffalo residents and a vacant schoolhouse was requisitioned as a contagious disease unit and called the Ernest Wende Hospital, after the city’s health commissioner. The following year, tuberculosis hit Buffalo with a vengeance with thousands of cases and over 500 deaths. It was during these medical crises that the city determined to build a new hospital for tuberculosis and bought an 82-acre farm on Grider Street where it would be erected, then appointed a board of managers to run it. The cost: $200,000 for the property and nearly $1 million to build the new hospital. Buffalo City Hospital 1918-1939