Adelaide House
Located in Todd Mall, Adelaide House is the second oldest building remaining in the Alice Springs CBD district. Construction began in 1920 and was completed in 1926, with the building serving as Central Australia's only hospital until 1939. John Flynn of the Australian Inland Mission is credited with the design and construction of Adelaide House, though the original idea for a hospital is attributed to Sister Jean Finlayson who arrived in Central Australia in 1915 to learn that seriously ill patients had to be transferred by wagon to Oodnadatta in South Australia, over 600 km south. Other sources mention J Sheldon Adams as the architect, and Jack Williams as the stonemason. Williams won the stonework contract and in April 1920 began work erecting walls, excavating the cellar, laying cement floors and sinking a well.
Adelaide House employed a natural cooling system which appears to be unique in Australia. It combined simple thermodynamic principles to duct cool air to hospital wards. Hot air exited the building envelope through a small upper level room, in the process drawing cool air into the building from the cellar. The cellar air passed through a stone passageway in which wet hessian was suspended, and then into the main building via ducts and vents. Adelaide House therefore used the principle of evaporative cooling already well known at the time in the Coolgardie safe, an early refrigerator-like device for cooling foodstuffs which used only water and a light breeze. The thermal performance of Adelaide House also benefitted greatly from 46cm thick stone walls and wide verandahs surrounding the entire building.
In addition to the unique cooling system, other innovations found in Adelaide House were electric lighting and a septic system (the first examples of such technologies recorded in Alice Springs). The stone Radio Hut at the rear of Adelaide House is where Alfred Traeger and John Flynn made their first field radio transmission in 1926 using Traeger's famous pedal wireless which was powered by a pair of bicycle pedals. Adelaide House was also the site of the first field radio telegram transmission in Australia.