Livingston Dunlap

(1799-Sept. 10, 1862). Livingston Dunlap was a prominent physician who was the first major advocate of a city hospital. A native of New York, he came to Indianapolis in 1821 and established a practice with the city’s first physician, Samuel G. Mitchell. Dunlap was active in the community, serving as postmaster, adjutant general, physician of the Deaf and Dumb Institute (see Indiana School For The Deaf), professor at the Central Medical College, and a member of the city council.

Throughout his tenure on the council, Dunlap lobbied for the construction of a city hospital to care for the sick poor, as well as smallpox and cholera victims. Although the council approved the construction of such a facility, and a hospital was constructed during the 1850s, it remained vacant until the Civil War and was nicknamed “Dunlap’s Folly.”

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