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Museum to feature history of local hospitals
Written by silvercitydailypress on October 21, 2009
Gila Regional Medical Center is the latest name of an institution founded in 1884 by the women of Silver City's booming silver and gold mining community.
The Silver City Museum at 312 W. Broadway will feature the history of hospitals in Silver City in an exhibit opening from 3-6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26 — the anniversary of the naming of the present facility as Gila Regional Medical Center in 1983.
In 1883, the Ladies Sewing Society decided the town needed a hospital to serve the miners and ranchers of the area, as well as the town residents.
The first facility, established by the Ladies' Hospital Aid Association and opened on March 12, 1884, was begun in a small, donated cottage at the Planing Mill Site on 13th Street in Silver City. In 1885, it relocated to the old courthouse site on Hudson Street, where the U.S. Forest Service Warehouse is now located, and was renamed the Grant County Charity Hospital. In 1918, the care of patients moved to Sixth and Kelly streets, where it remained for about 20 years. In 1937, the hospital near Juniper Street and U.S. 180 was constructed and named the Swift Memorial Hospital. Around 1957, the name was changed to Silver City General Hospital, and in 1959, after an addition was put on the building, it became Hillcrest Hospital, the predecessor to the present GRMC.
In an article in the Silver City Enterprise dated May 2, 1884, a "representative of the Enterprise yesterday paid a brief visit to the hospital.'
"Two of the board of trustees, Mrs. J.A. Miller and Mrs. G.W. Bailey, were on a visit of inspection, and Dr. W.N. Slough, the surgeon-in-charge, was making a round among the patients,' the article stated.
Slough offered his services free of charge and the county charged no rent for the building. The cost per day for each county patient was $1.
The two front rooms, each about 25 feet square, served as wards.
They had "lofty ceilings, (are) well lighted and with ample means of ventilation,' according to the article.
Only one ward was occupied with six patients, with diseases such as "Bright's disease of the kidneys, pneumonia, chronic rheumatism and general debility.' A patient from Deming had arrived after "his financial resources had evidently been exhausted. He was sent here as a dernier resort. Had it not been for
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