September 17, 1868 – Dr. Washington F. Peck presents his idea before the Trustees of the University, proposing the creation of a six-person medical department with professors of surgery, theory & practice of medicine, obstetrics, anatomy, chemistry, and materia medica (pharmacology).

In 1864, a young 23-year-old doctor, fresh from serving as an army surgeon in the Civil War, came to Davenport, Iowa to open a medical practice in the expanding West. Over the next twenty-seven years, Dr. Washington F. Peck helped start two hospitals – Mercy Hospital in Davenport & Iowa City, a home for orphans in Davenport, and most importantly, became – in 1870 – the founder and first director of the State University of Iowa School of Medicine.

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