Encyclopedia ofChicago Entries : Cook County Morgue Cook County
Morgue     Cook County Morgue  Since at least 1842, for which
the earliest records exist, the morgue has served as the site of
official inquiry into every questionable death in Cook County.
Housed in the City Hospital until 1876 and in Cook County
Hospital afterwards, the “deadhouse” was administered first by
an appointed “curator” and then, after 1864, an elected coroner.
Between 1872 and 1911, the coroner investigated more than 75,000
deaths. Coroners oversaw the inquest process, but staff
pathologists actually performed the autopsies, using them to
determine the cause of each decedent's demise, train Cook County
medical students, and generate valuable medical knowledge. (By
1900, the work of Christian Fenger and his protégés had
established Chicago as a world center of pathology research.) In
determining the manner of death, inquest juries considered
pathologist's conclusions as well as the findings of police, the
county state's attorney, and