Hospital

Light-hearted activities at Ft. Hancock Hospital

Some buildings which served important post functions are now gone. The hospital, completed in 1899, treated soldiers and their dependent family members during sickness and injury. Soldiers might be injured from heavy equipment at the fort and the Sandy Hook Proving Ground. One of the hospital's largest emergencies was in January 1944, when a Navy destroyer blew up on the ocean side of Sandy Hook. Fifty sailors were rushed to the hospital on boats and ambulances. The hospital needed blood plasma, and Battery Park in Manhattan had some to spare. Entertainment could make a hospital visit more cheerful, as seen in photos from the last years of the fort. The hospital was destroyed by fire in 1985.