St. Cloud Hospital - History

History

What would eventually become St. Cloud Hospital began as a succession of hospitals beginning in the late 1880s.

The first such institution was St. Benedict's Hospital, founded in 1886 by a group of Roman Catholic nuns from the Order of St. Benedict at the urging of Dr. A.C. Lamothe Ramsay. The hospital played a major role in aid following the Sauk Rapids Cyclone and was in need of expansion by 1889.

In 1889, the sisters accepted a gift of land southeast of the city for a larger hospital, St. Raphael’s, and the new facility opened on May 30, 1890. However, the failure of the city to extend roads and bridges to the area made it virtually inaccessible. The hospital never held more than seven patients at a time. Ten years later, a new hospital was constructed adjacent to the original building in 1900.

After years of increasing patient admissions, the sisters broke ground on a new hospital north of St. Cloud in May 1926. The hospital was renamed St. Cloud Hospital and formally dedicated on February 9, 1928. This remains the current site of the hospital.

In 1962, the sisters relinquished ownership of St. Cloud Hospital and incorporated it into a not-for-profit corporation. In 1975, the Diocese of St. Cloud joined with the sisters in helping to maintain the Catholic character of the hospital. Since 1995, the hospital has operated under the auspices of the local Catholic Church of St. Cloud.

Also in 1995, the corporations of St. Cloud Hospital and the St. Cloud Clinic of Internal Medicine merged to form the nonprofit CentraCare Health System.

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