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Accidentally HistoricAuthor: Historical Society of Pottawattamie County
Council Bluffs location has put the town into contact with a lot of history. Lewis and Clark and the Mormon pilgrims came through, as did the westbound pioneers on the Oregon and California Trails. Abraham Lincoln designated the town as milepost zero for the transcontinental railroad. The first coast-to-coast automobile trip passed through and later the first transcontinental highway. Council Bluffs was the birthplace of Omaha and first war-time mobile hospital. It also boasted the states first nursing school and FM radio station as well as the largest rotary cell jail ever built. This all created a lot of what we call history-- but at the time it wasnt intended that way at all. It was just normal people finding innovative ways to solve problems, inventing the future one day at a time. And that has made for some really interesting tales that we intend to explore in this podcast series. Language: en Genres: History Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Invisible Excellence- Creation of Mobile Hospital #1
Episode 28
Sunday, 15 September, 2024
It was one of the deadliest conflicts of all time-- new weaponry resulted in a scale and severity of injuries that was unprecedented. And the trauma of transporting these severely wounded to base hospitals became the weak link in the treatment chain. Relief came in the form of a medical unit from over 4,500 miles away; Mobile Hospital #1, aka Unit K, the Council Bluffs Unit, commanded by a former Council Bluffs mayor. Almost as astonishing as the novel concept of bringing care to the wounded on the battlefield was, the fact this milestone of military medicine pioneered by local doctors, nurses and support staff is today virtually unknown to Council Bluffs residents is even more surprising.This podcast is first in a series called “Invisible Excellence,” which will explore the history of this remarkable unit. Our guest is local writer and researcher, Brian Mainwaring. Comments, questions, or information about WWI medicine from your family lore are all encouraged. You can contact us at information@TheHistoricalSociety.org.We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following:Historical Society of Pottawattamie CountyJim McMullen and Kandis Kole-Skank of the Pottawattamie County Genealogical SocietyDr. David Holcomb Dr. James KnottThe reference department at the Council Bluffs Public Library References for more information:"Hospital No. 1 Won War Cross," Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil, July 26, 1936"Glimpsing Modernity: Military Medicine in WWI," Chapter Five, by WIlliam Montgomery, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016"Unit K the First MASH Unit," Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil, May 20, 2016"Iowa Hospital Corps Moved with WWI," Omaha World Herald, July 2, 2017"Brief Hospital of Mobile Hospital No. 1," Journal of the Iowa State Medical Association, April 1920"One Hundred Years of Iowa Medicine," Iowa State Medical Association, 1950"The Great War: One Medic's Diary," Bob Reilly, Creighton University Magazine, Summer, 2001"Joseph Marshall Flint," Samuel Clark Harvey, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine , March, 1945
