The original hospital for National Jewish was completed in 1893 and was to be named the Francis Wisebart Jacobs Hospital after its founder. However, because of a silver crisis and depression, there were no operating funds for the hospital and it sat vacant for six years until B'nai B'rith, a national Jewish organization, decided to raise the required operating funds on an annual basis. Since most of the funds were to come from outside Colorado, the name of the hospital was changed to National Jewish Hospital for treatment of consumptives. B'nai B'rith continued to support the hospital until the early 1950's. Today, National Jewish has no formal ties to any religious or quasi-religious institution and receives no annual funding from B'nai B'rith or any similar organizations. From its inception, National Jewish has been a non-sectarian institution. As emphasized at the ground-breaking for the hospital on October 9, 1892, it was noted that "…As pain knows no creed, so is this building the prototype of the grand idea of Judaism, which casts aside no stranger no matter of what race or blood. We consecrate this structure to humanity, to our suffering fellowman, regardless of creed." In fact, the very first patient at National Jewish, who entered the hospital on December 11, 1899, was a young non-Jewish woman with tuberculosis from Minneapolis.