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This historic building is the future home of Sonya and I.
From: History of Knox County by N.N. Hill
"May 12, 1874, the directors of the infirmary petitioned the county commissioners (D. F. Halsey, John C. Levering, and John Lyal) to proceed immediately to erect new buildings; and on the fifteenth of May the said commissioners employed Tinsley & Company, of Columbus, Ohio, to furnish plans and specifications for a building the cost of which was not to exceed fifty thousand ollars. Pursuant to this plan they contracted with J. Henegan & Company, September 30, 1874, to complete the said buildings for the sum of thirty-eight thousand nine hundred and thirty-six dollars and seventy-four cents.
The work under the superintendence of Mr. Clifford Buxton, progressed slowly, but it soon became evident that the buildings contemplated by the plans of the architect, Mr. T. R. Tinsley, could not be completed for the stipulated price. After enclosing the building Henegan & Company failed and obliged the commissioners to take the contract off their hands, paying them twenty-eight thousand dollars for the material furnished and labor performed. The commissioners now assumed the responsibility of its completion themselves, .and under the superintendence of Samuel Israel, esq., with Mr. William Bound as master mechanic, the work was rapidly pushed forward, being completed and ready for the reception of inmates in September, 1877, at a cost of eighty-three thousand dollars.
The new infirmary is situated on a beautiful rise of ground on the south side of Dry creek near Bangs Station, on the Cleveland, Mount Vernon, & Columbus railroad. The main building is seventy-five by one hundred and twenty-seven feet, with an open court in the rear thirty-four by fifty-five feet. It is four stories high, with a tower rising sixty-five feet above the roof, and consumed in its construction over one million bricks. It contains three water tanks on the upper door, containing forty barrels of water each, and is heated throughout by steam. The main entrance is on the second story, and is approached by two iron stairways. There are in the building one hundred rooms capable of conveniently accommodating one hundred and twenty-five inmates, the number of whom, March 1, 1880, was, as per report of directors, as follows: males, twenty-eight; females, thirty-three; total, sixty-one. According to the same report, it cost to support these from September, 1876, till March, 1880, the sum of four thousand five hundred and fifty-six dollars and fifty cents, and from March, 1880 to September 1880, four thousand seven hundred and forty-six dollars and eighty cents. Total for one year, nine thousand three hundred and three dollars and thirty cents. During the same year the infirmary paid into the
county treasury the sum of one thousand and seventy dollars and eight cents. The present directors are Andrew Caton, Michael Hess, and R H. Bebout. John W. Williams is superintendent.
Knox county infirmary, although it has "come up through much tribulation," is an institution of which the citizens of the county may justly be proud, and stands to-day a monument to the public spirit of the commissioners under whose auspices it was erected, and to the cultivated, benevolent spirit of the people."
