There may have been more, but I remember an old building up on the hill to the east of Broadlawns Hospital on Hickman Road. We were told it was the old pest house and my parents never wanted us around there - but that didn't go too far. Somehow my brother came down with hepatitis and we thought it was because we played in the woods around there and Broadlawns and the river. All of the students at two schools had to be vaccinated. There were also tuberculosis sanitoriums. This was about 1960. Pat ====================== I had three boys, and when they were ages 3, 7, and 10, there was a flu bug floating arround the school etc. One day my mother called to check on how things were going and when I told her we still had a problem, her answer was "if you don't get rid of that bug soon, we'll have to send them to the pest house". I asked her what she meant by that. She said back in 1918, when she was a 6 yr. old and lived in Des Moines, her mother took her shopping, and at that time they had pest houses. If you came down with the flu you were forced to go to the house and live. You stayed there until you either got well or died. She said she could remember caskets stacked on the curb two and three high. miroda@netins.net