Red Cross Building and Beehive Memorial

Once located in the heart of Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, the Red Cross Building finished construction October 5, 1918, and opened as a recreational and social service center for patients able and semi-able to walk. The characteristic cross shaped Mission-Revival style building with stucco exterior walls, over-hanging eaves, and red shingled roof occupied the space behind the Beehive Memorial. The Beehive Memorial, erected July 1923, honors officers, nurses, and military personnel of the medical department lost during World War I and gained funding through one-dollar donations from enlisted medical personnel who survived WWI. Armed with Gray Ladies as Red Cross volunteers, the Red Cross building remained operational until Fitzsimons’ closure in 1996. Although the building was landmarked in 1999 it was demolished in 2015, The Beehive Memorial remains, continuing to honor those medical military personnel lost. 

Recreation Hall 

In 1918, the U.S. Army General Hospital No. 21 received military personnel deemed unfit for duty due to serious injury, permanent disablement, or respiratory illness specifically Tuberculosis. The goal of the Red Cross building was to maintain the morale and high spirits of the patients to contribute to their long-term recovery. To support the social recreation of the patients, John A. O’Brien the recreational officer at the Red Cross Building in 1919 organized nightly boxing, musical, movie, vaudeville act, and public speaker entertainment. Recreation did not discriminate against patients bedridden, but brought circus visits, horseback, and sharpshooting exhibitions to the wards. The patient and staff growth following the completion of the permanent hospital (the Fitzsimons Building) in 1941 led to the construction of the post theater which replaced the Red Cross building as the center for movies and live performances. However, while movies and live performances moved to the theater, the Red Cross Building continued as a recreational hall with table tennis, access to fishing equipment for the stocked Waterfowl Pond, hosted parties, and reading and writing activities.  

Architecture 

The Red Cross Building reflects the Mission Revival architectural style with stucco parapets on the end walls of the gabled roof in all four directions. The two-story cross-shaped building’s interior had exposed rafters and large brick fireplaces on the first floor on both the north and south sides of the central hallway. With its unique shape and center location, the Red Cross Building was meant to physically represent the strength and unified aim of recuperating injured soldiers through morale-building activities in a symbolic recognizable structure. The Beehive memorial is ten feet high and constructed from concrete mortar and large cobblestone or river rock. At the center of the front side facing The Fitzsimons Building is the bronze memorial plaque with the text: “In Memory Of The Officers Nurses And Enlisted Men Of The Medical Department United States Army Who Lost Their Lives During The World War This Tablet is Erected By Their Coworkers Of The Medical Department.” 

1. (Image) Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, C. S. Lambie Company, and Inc Greenhorne & O'Mara, Lebovich, Bill, photographer. Fitzsimons General Hospital, Red Cross Building, South Eighth Street Bounded by West McAfee Avenue on South & West Harlow Avenue on North, Aurora, Adams County, CO. Adams County Aurora Colorado, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/co0554/. 
2. Illescas, Carlos. “Aurora’s Landmark Red Cross Building to be Razed.” The Denver Post. July 29, 2014.  
3. “Aurora Landmark Properties Nomination Form.” City of Aurora Historic Preservation Commission. 8/1/1999. LM-Nomination-15-Red-Cross.pdf (auroracohistoricalsociety.org) 
4. “Red Cross to Have Building at Camp.” The Denver Post, June 5, 1918. 
5. Ditmer, Janne. “Fitzsimons’ Historic Past, Redevelopment Case Several Buildings’ Fate up to Aurora Council.” The Denver Post, July 5, 1999. 
6. The Story of a Great Institution, 1918-1938 published by John S. Stewart Post No. 1 Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. Fitzsimons General Hospital 1938 (History Colorado 355.72 V641) 
7. Fitzsimons General Hospital Denver, CO. editor James E. Griffin Capt. Med. Adm. Corps. December 1943 
8. Aurora History Museum image iv, v, vi