On Sept. 5, 1918, Dr. John S. Hitchcock, the head of the communicable disease section of the Massachusetts State Department of Health warned that influenza would likely spread to the Boston population.

Influenza had broken out at the Receiving Ship on August 28, and within a week there were over two-dozen cases among sailors stationed there. Soon, the disease spread to other nearby naval installations and shipyards, and by mid-September it had infected nearly two thousand of the 21,000 sailors stationed in the Boston area. With so many cases, medical officers struggled to procure adequate healthcare facilities.

Under the direction of Colonel William H. Brooks of nearby Brookline, the Massachusetts National Guard erected a tent hospital on Corey Hill, completing the work in a single day. Two hundred sick sailors were admitted to the new emergency hospital the next day, September 10.