Hubble House and the Doctor Who Helped Build a Town
The Hubble House on E Street in La Verne. This photo was taken in 1910. The house was bought by John Hubble in 1905 and sold in 1921. Photo courtesy the La Verne Historical Society (Second photo) The Hubble House today. Photo by Staci Baird/La Verne Daily News
If these walls could talk, they’d tell the story of a doctor who helped deliver a town.
The Hubble House has stood in La Verne since the early 1900s, once home to Dr. John Hubble, his wife, Lauuna, and their children from 1905 to 1921. At a time when house calls were the norm, Hubble saw patients in an office inside his home and delivered countless babies in Lordsburg. Just around the corner on Bonita Avenue, new mothers recovered in a nearby “maternity home.”
But Hubble’s story begins long before La Verne.
Born the ninth of 12 children into poverty after the Civil War, he spent 15 years on crutches or in a wheelchair after a childhood farm accident. That experience shaped his future. Determined to cure his ongoing knee infection, Hubble studied medicine with a focus on bone infections. At 27, he performed surgery on his own knee—without anesthetic—lifting the kneecap, cleaning the infection and stitching it closed. Only then did he feel ready to begin the rest of his life.
He met Lauuna while boarding at a hotel in Chilhowie, Virginia, and they married in 1893.
