The Lazaretto Preservation Association of Tinicum Township will raise the International Quarantine Flag over the property on June 5 at 4pm, to re-create an annual ritual that took place every June 1, when the Philadelphia Department of Public Health would go to the Lazaretto to raise the quarantine flag and hold a banquet complete with brandy and cigars. The event will feature guest speaker Professor David S. Barnes, Ph.D. Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania. The Lazaretto was built in 1799 along the banks of the Delaware River in Essington, Pennsylvania. It was the official quarantine station for the city of Philadelphia. For most of the next century, all passenger and cargo vessels bound for the port of Philadelphia were required to dock at the Lazaretto for inspection. Passengers suspected of contagion were quarantined in the hospital, and all suspect cargo was stored in the public warehouse. The Board of Health of the City of Philadelphia operated the facility until 1893. After it was closed as a hospital, it was used as an aviation base. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, the Lazaretto is the oldest intact quarantine facility in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth oldest in the world. Although presently vacant, the building is in excellent condition with much of its original fabric intact. The Lazaretto Preservation Association of Tinicum Township, a non-profit incorporated in 2008, is now working to ensure the preservation, interpretation and adaptive re-use of this little known but important historical site. The Lazaretto is located at 99 Wanamaker Avenue (at 2nd Street), Essington, PA.
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