Though Winona selled with vitality in the late 1800s with its schools, businesses and churches, the city had a serious deficiency.
Winona didn’t have a hospital.
This lack in health care threatened the well-being of residents in the city and throughout the area.
In the city’s earliest days, the Sisters of St. Joseph operated a hospital, known as St. John’s.
This endeavor didn’t prove to be successful.
The property was sold to the Franciscan Sisters for a ladies’ seminary, which later became the College of St. Teresa.
Other various efforts to create a new hospital consistently failed.
Finally, in February 1894, about 15 men, doctors and other residents voluntarily formed the Winona General Hospital Association.
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The group held the strong intention to establish the hospital that the community desperately needed.
The association succeeded throughout challenges, including the fact that the group had no initial capital.
The organization required that the funding needed to run the hospital would come from private contributions and receipts from patients.
Winona General Hospital was founded as a not-for-profit organization in 1894.
Community involvement
Since its earliest days of operation, Winona’s hospital has generated much community interest and support.
The generosity of residents is the foundation of the hospital’s life and success.
Under the association’s leadership, Winona residents raised about $4,500 to rent a house and to equip it as a hospital.
The house that served as the first Winona General Hospital was the old Langley home, on the corner of Sanborn and Winona streets.
Today this is the site of a Winona State University dormitory.
The original hospital was equipped to serve 18 patients.
In its first year, the hospital staff cared for 225 patients.
The Langley home served as Winona’s first hospital until 1899, when the state of Minnesota purchased the property.
Yet by this time, city and hospital officials had already realized the great need for a larger facility to house the local hospital.
Along with community support, the development of the hospital was closely linked with dedicated medical professionals.
Drs. Donald Pritchard and J.B. McGaughey and other physicians were among those responsible for organizing the Winona General Hospital Association.
Dr. Pritchard is said to have been the chief organizer of the city’s first hospital.
The first practicing physician in Winona County was Dr. James Cole, who arrived in 1854 and remained in the area for 40 years.
The auxiliary association also has played an important role in the hospital’s success since its earliest days.
The active group continues to raise funds for nursing scholarships and hospital equipment through such events as the Charity Ball.
Through other contributions, about 300 volunteers today give more than 25,000 hours of service.
New hospital site
In 1898, about $35,000 was raised through public contributions to build and to equip a new hospital site.
Its location was Indiana Avenue, which is today Wabasha Street, between Ewing and Lincoln streets.
This east wing of the current Community Memorial Hospital was designed to serve about 50 patients.
The newest hospital was completed and occupied in the spring of 1899.
Another part of the hospital was the Winona General Hospital Training School for nurses, established in 1895.
It operated until 1935.
A few years after the hospital’s 1899 opening, space became an issue again.
An area used as a nurses’ home had to be used for patients.
Yet space was still needed for the nurses.
Community leaders provided for the hospital’s needs yet again.
The Republican-Herald, which is now the Daily News, contributed one day’s receipts to the nurses’ home.
C.M. Youmans, then the president of the Winona General Hospital Association, matched that amount.
In 1909, a new nurse’s home was built.
The hospital continued to experience growth in the early 1900s — and the challenges that success brought with it.
By 1919, the hospital became so crowded that expansion again became an issue.
Private donors made an addition possible.
In that year, the three-story west wing of the present hospital was built.
In 1926, funds were raised to complete that area of the hospital.
The addition brought the capacity to 130 patients.
A hospital medical staff was organized in 1924.
It was considered one of the most important steps in the development of Winona General Hospital.
Nursing education was a vital part of the hospital’s early history.
A school of practical nursing was established in 1950.
The first class of 12 nurses graduated in August 1951 from the one-year course.
CMH is built
Several decades later in April 1959, a Winona community-wide campaign raised the funds needed for a new hospital building, Community Memorial Hospital on Mankato Avenue.
The name of the hospital was changed with the move.
In 1962, more than 7,000 people toured the new facility during its open house.
In August 1962, patients were moved from Winona General Hospital to Community Memorial Hospital.
In June 1964, general construction of the Convalescent and Rehabilitation Unit began.
The 104-bed unit was added to CMH based on community needs.
The hospital board of directors also endorsed the idea of providing extended nursing care for those requiring rehabilitation.
Patients were moved into this new addition in February 1966.
Hospital expansion continued into the 1970s.
Construction began in November 1976 for the Medical Office Building.
The first two offices were occupied in June 1977.
After seven years of planning, the Emergency Room/Intensive Care addition was started in 1979.
That much time was taken to plan for the addition and to ensure that the best possible facility would be built.
The two-story addition houses the Admitting, Emergency, Health Information Services, Laboratory, Intensive-Coronary Care and Pharmacy departments.
100 years of service
As the hospital celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1994, the community witnessed three exciting projects that were about to be completed: the Adith Miller Manor, a 4,125-square-foot addition in the C&R Unit and an addition to the operating room.
Each addition enhanced the hospital’s operations.
Adith Miller Manor is a home on CMH’s campus for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
The C&R Unit addition provided easier access and more space for the patient therapy areas.
The operating room addition gave more area for patients and better traffic flow within the department to accommodate the rising number of outpatient surgeries in recent years.
The hospital continued to grow in the 1990s, and the facility will change as various needs present themselves in the new millenium.
Today at CMH, a variety of departments serve its patients, including anesthesia; behavioral health; cardiac rehabilitation; food and nutrition; laboratory; family birth center; and sports medicine.
Since the hospital’s beginnings in 1894, the organization has evolved to meet the needs of residents living throughout the area by providing new and improved services.
In 1999, leaders of the hospital found it necessary to organize all of its services under a new name,Winona Health.
The mission of Winona Health is to improve the health of people in the Winona regional community.
Winona Health’s services include: Community Memorial Hospital; Manor Living; Parkview Pharmacy; Rushford Clinic; WINONAChoice; Winona Area Ambulance Service;Winona Area Hospice Services; Winona Health Foundation; and Winona Health Home Care.
Winona Health employs 800 staff.
In addition, 50 active physicians work for the organization, covering 13 specialties.
A courtesy medical and dental staff helps to provide quality care for patients.
