The Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanatorium was completed in 1915 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and designed by architects Robert A. Messmer & Brother. It was built as a county treatment facility for tuberculosis and served as such from 1915 until its closing in 1969. The Sanatorium includes the five-story Administration Building and the single-story Powerhouse Building on the opposite side of Innovation Drive.

The design of Muirdale was unique for its verticality. Rather than being spread horizontally across a large campus, the primary functions of the sanatorium were conducted in a single, tall building, with cottages housing patients surrounding the main building, allowing doctors to work more efficiently. Muirdale also became a model facility for its treatment therapies and procedures, which became standard practice, both among Wisconsin sanatoria and nationally.

The Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanatorium became a model facility during the twentieth century and introduced several important therapies and procedures that became standard practice among Wisconsin sanatoria or were adopted nationally. Dr. Glenford L. Bellis, Muirdale’s first Superintendent and Medical Director initiated the practice of occupational therapy or “industrial recreation” to keep patients minds active and to prepare them for life after the sanatorium. Patients could take classes taught by other patients in a range of subjects, but primarily ones involving a craft. Rooms were given over to a wood shop and other specialized production spaces, while less ambulatory patients were allowed to work on projects at their bed. The method of occupational therapy was so successful that it was mandated for all sanatoria by Wisconsin state legislature in 1919; Wisconsin became the only state to have such a requirement.