Stillwater’s hospital owes its existence to the efforts of a group of benevolent-minded women who sought to provide care to the city’s “sick and destitute.” Before 1880, the city had no hospital, so in February of that year, a group of the city’s leading women met to discuss the need for a hospital. The women formed the County Benevolent Society and incorporated the Stillwater City Hospital the following month. As one of our Facebook followers commented, “Stillwater’s pioneering women started the hospital and the library! An impressive group.”
The hospital was the first community hospital in Minnesota outside of the bigger cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth, and the fifth hospital in the state. It was open to everyone regardless of age, race or sex. The hospital’s first location was in a rented home on Western Row (now Greeley) near Anderson Street. It remained there only a short time, as the City Council soon purchased a nearby property on the east shore of Lily Lake. The home on that property was converted for hospital use and opened on October 21, 1880.
The hospital operated out of the home for about 10 years when the home’s poor condition prompted the building of a new hospital. In its place, a new brick hospital was built for a cost of $7,500 and opened in January 1892. This building served hospital needs for about 20 years, until, in 1912, plans for a newer, more modern hospital were undertaken. A “front” addition was built in front of the old hospital building at a cost of $90,000 and became the new hospital, opening in 1919.
The hospital’s name was also changed from Stillwater City Hospital to Lakeview Memorial Hospital at this time. This picture shows Lakeview Memorial Hospital as it stood in 1921, not long after the new building opened. The “old” hospital building from 1892 is just visible on the right side of the photo behind the new building. The home on the left side of the hospital housed nurses.
We believe the car parked in front of the hospital is a Ford Model T – perhaps a model manufactured between 1917 and 1920 – but we’d love to hear from any car experts out there.
This photograph is part of the John Runk Photograph Collection and can be viewed in the St. Croix Collection room anytime the library is open.