Construction

Jamieson and Spearl, architects from St. Louis, were employed to design the building. An appropriation of $500,000 for the erection and equipment of the hospital was made by the 59th and 60th General Assemblies. The Public Works Administration, a Federal agency, contributed approximately $400,000, making the cost of the project, as completed, about $900,000. The hospital was designed as a seven-story building that covered an area of approximately 200 by 40 feet.

Groundwork for the hospital began in the fall of 1938. The tract of land selected for the hospital had previously been a dairy farm. This site sat on the outer edge of Columbia, along Missouri's major east-west highway of the time, Highway 40. Highway 40 evolved into I-70 almost twenty years after the hospital opened.

Dedication ceremonies to officially open the hospital were held April 26, 1940 making Ellis Fischel Cancer Center the first cancer hospital west of the Mississippi River and the second such institution in the United States.

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