One of the oldest addiction treatment hospitals in the U.S., Fairbanks Hospital serves men, women, and adolescents with alcohol and drug addiction and helps families cope with the impact of the disease.
The facility was founded in 1945 as the Indiana Home for Alcoholic Men. It was later renamed after the wife of , a native Hoosier, who served as vice president to Theodore Roosevelt from 1905-1909. Fairbanks’ wife, Cornelia, was greatly admired around the country and was a prominent figure in the Daughters of the American Revolution. After she died, Charles left a will of $50,000 to create the Cornelia Cole Fairbanks Trust Fund to be given to an Indianapolis charity every 50 years.
In the late 1960s, Fairbanks’ grandson , knowing a good employee who suffered from alcoholism, persuaded the trust to give the money to the Indiana Home for Alcoholic Men. The fund allowed the small facility to expand. In 1970, the facility was renamed the Cornelia Cole Fairbanks Home and a new location was opened next to the , which would also include services to help women struggling with addiction. “Home” was soon replaced with “Hospital” after the facility received accreditation for addiction treatment.
The hospital moved locations within a decade to manage the influx of patients and expand the size of its campus to add more facilities to offer a wider variety of treatments. This new location opened in 1982 adjacent to Community North Hospital on the city’s northeast side.
The mission of Fairbanks Hospital is to “inspire hope and transform lives as the experts in addiction, focused on recovery.” The hospital, which treats thousands of patients a year, has expanded to include multiple buildings ranging from a recovery center, conference room, chapel, board room, fortune hall, and lodge, as well as a library and garden for patient enjoyment and comfort.
At the end of 2019, Fairbanks merged with the . As the new state-of-the-art Neuro-Diagnostic Institute opened on the Community Hospital East campus in early 2020, this merger made possible comprehensive psychiatric treatment covering substance abuse disorders and other mental health conditions in both outpatient and inpatient settings in the health network.
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