For almost a century, Cook Children's Medical Center has grown from the Fort Worth Free Baby Hospital to one of the largest children's hospitals in the nation with a service area that covers 47 percent of the entire state of Texas. On Jan. 29, 1929, the W. I. Cook Memorial Hospital opened at 1212 W. Lancaster St. with 55 beds. During the polio epidemic in the early 1950s, the hospital changed its mission to care exclusively for the needs of children. This photograph was taken April 12, 1954, when students from Bluebonnet Elementary school presented patients with Easter baskets their class made.
Courtesy Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
