68 High Street
apartment building and former hospital in Portland, Maine, USA
68 High Street, formerly the Children's Hospital, is a historic colonial revival building in Portland, Maine, United States. Located on the eastern edge of Portland's West End, the building was built in 1909 and was designed by architect Frederick A. Tompson. According to news archives, Drs. Edville Gerhardt Abbott and Harold A. Pingree and Frank W. Lamb founded this worldwide famous children's hospital for disabled children with scoliosis together in 1908.
It closed in 1948, with most of the 56 patients at the time being transferred to Maine General Hospital, which was later renamed the Maine Medical Center. It also served as an annex to the Mussey Mansion until the left part of that building was demolished in 1961. It was also owned by the University of Maine system. It housed the University of Maine School of Law from 1962 until 1972, after which was used by the University of Southern Maine as administrative offices.
In 2010, Community Housing of Maine sought to develop the property and the adjacent empty lot into 35 units of affordable housing. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places March 7, 2012.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “68 High Street” is apartment building and former hospital in Portland, Maine, USA. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through High, Street and apartment, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “apartment building and former hospital in Portland, Maine, USA” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4642339. Authority coordinates are 43.652, -70.261. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1908, 1948 and 1961.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “68 High Street”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 68 High Street primary sources, 68 High Street archive and High research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “68 High Street”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “68 High Street” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.