Opened in 1961 as the Chicago Home for Incurables, the site was devoted to research and treatment of the chronically ill. Today, this building serves as a research space and contains wet laboratories and offices for the University of Chicago Medicine.

Peck Pavilion is named in honor of Chicago philanthropist Clarissa C. Peck, whose bequest helped establish the original Chicago Home for Incurables in 1886 to care for individuals in Cook County with conditions that were then deemed “incurable,” including tuberculosis, rheumatism, paralysis, and locomotor ataxia (known today as tabes dorsalis). Chicago Home for Incurables became formally affiliated with the University of Chicago in 1958 and subsequently supported medical research at the University, with an emphasis on chronic and incurable diseases.