As Detroit's population exploded, so did its need for hospital beds.

In 1909, an effort began to establish Detroit General Hospital, and ground was broken in 1912. However, financial troubles shelved things until automotive pioneer Henry Ford offered to pick up the tab. In exchange, Ford would become president of the board and would be allowed to run the hospital his way.

The 500-bed hospital officially opened on Oct. 1, 1915. This original patient building — designed by William Buck Stratton of Stratton & Baldwin — still survives today, though it has been surrounded by other structures.

For these other buildings, Henry Ford would get to pick the architect to build the rest of it. Apparently impressed with Ford Motor Co. staff architect Albert Wood’s work on the automaker’s car factories in Europe, the auto baron tapped Wood for the job.

According to Henry Ford Hospital archivists, Wood expressed some reservations, as an auto plant was a lot different than a hospital. However, Henry Ford apparently felt that Wood’s experience working on a hotel in British Columbia was close enough, and that a hospital was like “a hotel for sick people.”

Construction on the main hospital building, the Henry Ford Hospital we know today, began in 1917, but was stalled because of World War I. While the hospital was still under construction, the U.S. Army took control of it in 1918. Wood worked under Maj. Luther Lewis (later of Crow, Lewis and Wick of New York) on alterations to the hospital that the Army required. After the war ended in November 1918, the hospital was given back to Henry Ford, and Wood set out to complete it.

Henry Ford Hospital finally opened Dec. 21, 1921, and was one of the largest in the world at the time, accommodating 2,000 patients. Over the ensuing decades, the main campus would grow to cover almost 34 acres. The hospital also hired architect Albert Kahn to design the Clara Ford Nurses Pavilion and adjacent Education Building to train its nurses.

The hospital would pioneer a number of things considered standard today, such as full-time staffs that work at only one hospital and uniform fees for treatment. More than 12,000 employees, patients and visitors enter the campus each day.