St. Francis Hospital was built in 1847 at 311 East State Street (present site of Grant Medical Center). The hospital, a Norman Gothic structure, was the first to combine patient care and clinical teaching in the same facility in the United States. St. Francis Hospital comprised two-thirds of the building with Starling Medical College housed in the remainder.

Starling Medical College (one of six predecessor schools to the OSU College of Medicine) was in operation from 1847 to 1907 and named in honor of Mr. Lyne Starling, who donated the land and $35,000 for the new building. During its tenure, the College had 2,600 graduates. Initially lacking funding to complete the hospital part of the building, Dr. Richard L. Howard, a Starling Medical College trustee, provided money to open the “Howard Infirmary.” Managing this facility proved to be overwhelming and the Infirmary closed in the 1850s. Because of the lack of medical facilities in Columbus at this time, local physicians organized a move to bring a group of nuns to the Columbus community to serve as health care workers in 1861. In 1865, a 99-year lease was granted to the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis to operate the hospital. In 1929, the Sisters organized a School of Nursing which moved to St. Anthony’s Hospital in 1955 when St. Francis Hospital closed. St. Francis Hospital was razed in 1957.