MORNINGSIDE SANITARIUM
300 Femrite Drive
Several buildings built over 60 years ago with their many windows facing the morning sun on the east side of Monona's highest hill stand as testimony to man's determination to fight the white plague of tuberculosis. The simple wood frame "cottages" symbolize the compassion of many who bought Christmas Seals to provide facilities and of the doctors and nurses who devoted their lives to caring for the afflicted there.
Morningside Sanitarium began to accept tuberculosis patients in 1918, almost ten years before any other facility in Dane County would accept them. For many years Morningside was the work of three men, backed by the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association (WATA). In the 1950s, about 59 patients, many of them children, were "taking the cure" there. Control of the dreaded disease decreased the need for hospital care during the 1960s and Morningside was closed as a tuberculosis facility in the early 1970s. The land now serves as an arboretum where school children can learn from the land, and the facilities house the Tellurian Community, which treats young people with drug addictions.
