Children's Mercy begins with two compassionate sisters

The founding of Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics is traced to 1897 and two sisters, Dr. Alice Berry Graham, a dentist, and Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson, a physician.

As the story goes, a saloonkeeper in the Kansas City Stockyards had heard of the sisters' reputation for helping poor, sick children and he told Dr. Graham of a woman he had seen in the streets trying to give away her crippled 5-year-old daughter.

Drs. Graham and Richardson found the girl abandoned, undernourished and poorly clothed. They arranged a bed for her at a small hospital on 15th and Cleveland in downtown Kansas City on June 24, 1897. The doctors established the Free Bed Fund Association and through painstaking care, they restored life to the orphaned child's crippled legs. With surgery and therapy, she walked again.

Their act of compassion and medical expertise was the beginning of what has become one of the leading children's hospitals in the world: Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics.

Today, Children's Mercy includes two hospitals: a state-of-the-art, 335-bed hospital at 2401 Gillham Rd. in Kansas City, Mo; and Children's Mercy South, a 54-bed hospital in suburban Overland Park, Kan. In addition, there are bustling outpatient clinics and urgent care centers throughout the metropolitan areas and many other communities in Missouri and Kansas.

Significant dates in the history of Children's Mercy's

1897: Free Bed Fund Association of Sick, Crippled, Deformed and Ruptured Children opened its doors with one bed on June 24.

1901: Central Governing Board of the Free Bed Fund approves the Mercy name.

1904: Dr. Robert Schauffler is the first male physician allowed to practice at the hospital. It is officially called Mercy Hospital, opens with five beds at 414 Highland Avenue, offering maternity and pediatric services. Grew to 27 beds by 1906.

1913: Co-founder Dr. Alice Berry Graham dies.

1914: Hospital is deeded two acres of land at Independence and Woodland avenues for new facility.

1916: Children's Mercy Hospital opens at Independence and Woodland on Nov. 27. Fifty nine patients moved from Highland location. $375,000 raised between 1915-1916 to construct building. Serves as home for Children's Mercy until 1970.

1917: The Kansas City Board of Education began supporting a teaching staff so patients requiring a prolonged stay at the hospital could continue their education. A bedside or classroom teacher has been provided during the school year ever since.

1933: Co-founder Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson dies. Elizabeth Martin, RN, becomes supervisor of the hospital and oversees its operations for the next 30 years.

1948: Hospital dismantles isolation wards.

1956: Dr. Wayne Hart begins work as hospital's first medical director, the only full-time physician practicing at Children's Mercy. His first assignment was to establish a residency program with the University of Kansas.

1964: An elementary school at 351 South Park is dedicated to the memory of co-founder Katharine Berry Richardson.

1968: Groundbreaking for the hospital at its current location, 2401 Gillham Road, on Hospital Hill.

1970: Hospital staff moves 39 children to the hospital's Gillham location on Dec. 17.

1975: Adolescent Medicine Clinic opens to serve the unique medical and psychosocial needs of pre-teen and teen-age patients.

1985: The Pediatric Care Center moves to the Diagnostic and Treatment Center adjacent to the hospital. It is the first clinic to move off-site, signaling the need for more room.

1987: The first pediatric specialty clinics open in Overland Park, Kan., to meet the needs of the growing population in the southern part of the metropolitan area. Additional clinics are added and an outpatient surgery center opens in Johnson County. Ten years later, this operation evolves into Children's Mercy South.

1992: Ground broken for the addition of an outpatient center and a patient tower at the Hospital Hill location. Centennial Campaign fund-raising effort begins: $68 million raised in two years.

1993: Based on the knowledge that many children get well faster at home, Children's Mercy Home Care begins to provide care for children in the comfort of their homes.

1995: Five-story Hall Family Outpatient Center opens with 21 pediatric specialty clinics; has about 150,000 patient visits in first year.

1996: Seven-story Herman and Helen Sutherland Outpatient Tower opens, allowing the hospital to enhance the patient- and family-friendly environment of the hospital, providing parent beds in rooms and a more comfortable atmosphere.

1996: Established Family Health Partners, a non-profit Healthcare Maintenance Organization providing services to the medically vulnerable and uninsured through the State of Missouri's MC+ program.

1997: A year-long centennial celebration. Children's Mercy named one of the top children's hospitals in the country by Child magazine. Children's Mercy South opens in October.

1999: Children's Mercy purchases a primary care pediatric practice in Wyandotte County and establishes the Parallel Parkway Clinic to meet the needs of an under-served area of Kansas City, Kan. Additional doctors and staff are added and the practice continues to grow, eventually becoming Children's Mercy West in 2007.

2000: Staff and patients move into the Paul and Betty Henson Patient Tower, a complement to the Sutherland Tower. Combined, the towers provide updated, private rooms to most Children's Mercy patients and families, as well as other features.

2001: The public portion of a $50 million fund-raising drive begins to support the Children's Mercy Research Vision, a plan to improve the lives of children through discoveries from world-class researchers working at Children's Mercy.

2003: Awarded Magnet designation for nursing excellence, the first hospital in Missouri or Kansas and just the third children's hospital nationwide to achieve this honor from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

2003: In response to requests by community pediatricians and residents, work begins at Children's Mercy Northland, an urgent care center and specialty clinic in the north part of the metropolitan area.

2003: Pediatric Research Center opens in 32,000 square feet on top two floors of the new Clinic and Research Building on Hospital Hill.

2007: Children's Mercy West - The Cordell Meeks Jr. Clinic, a primary care service, opens in Wyandotte County.

2007: Children's Mercy announces a comprehensive, 15-year expansion plan to add inpatient beds, outpatient clinic space, research labs and more, with a price tag of around $800 million.

2008: Dr. Stephen Spielberg, an internationally-known pediatrician and researcher, joins the Children's Mercy staff as director of the hospital's new Center for Personalized Medicine and Therapeutic Innovation.

2010: Ground is broken on the Elizabeth Ann Hall Patient Tower, the third patient tower at the Hospital Hill campus. It will add new intensive care beds, laboratory space and a new chapel.

2011: Children's Mercy is ranked by US News and World Report as one of the Best Children's Hospitals in the country in all 10 categories ranked by the magazine and pediatric sub-specialists across the country. Ground is broken for Children's Mercy East in Independence, Mo., an outpatient and urgent care center designed to provide more convenient and accessible care for children and families in the eastern part of the metro area.

2011: The Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine, the first of its kind, opens with the goal of decoding DNA of children with genetic diseases to help doctors determine their cause and decide the best course of treatment. The Fetal Health Center also opens, one of just a handful in the country where babies are delivered inside a children's hospital with direct access to medical and surgical expertise and moms and high-risk babies can be kept together.

2012: The new College Boulevard Urgent Care Center opens near Children's Mercy South to complement the new Tom Watson Emergency Room at South. The Hall Patient Tower opens. Children's Mercy repeats its ranking by US News and World Report as one of the Best Children's Hospitals in the country in all 10 categories. Children's Mercy East opens.

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