Ripley Memorial Hospital

Harrison, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Ripley Memorial Hospital, a Tudor Revival structure in the Harrison neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was completed in 1916 as the flagship building of a pioneering maternity hospital founded by Dr. Martha Ripley in 1886. Established to address the alarmingly high mortality rates of women in childbirth, the hospital became notable for employing exclusively female physicians and board members—a remarkable practice in the late 19th century—and for serving primarily poor, unmarried, and widowed women. Before the 1916 main building, the hospital expanded across its five-acre site with the Marshall Stacy Nursery (1909), the Babies' Bungalow (1910), and the Emily Paddock Cottage (1911). Following its closure in 1957, the complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 2007, the former hospital was redeveloped as Ripley Gardens, an affordable housing community providing rental and ownership opportunities for low- to moderate-income residents as part of a nationally funded historic preservation initiative.