Albany General Hospital Marks 100th Year

A hundred years ago, four Albany physicians grew tired of treating patients in their living rooms.

One, Frank Beauchamp, MD, already had a delivery room and a five-bed maternity ward in his house on Third Avenue. He and fellow Albany doctors James Wallace, MD; George Fortmiller, MD; and James Robnett, MD, wanted a separate workshop that was set up specifically to meet patient needs.

With help from Albany attorney Art McMahon, the doctors pooled $7,000 in cash to buy property on Elm Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. Then the five sold bonds, asked for donations and put in thousands of dollars of their own money to gather a total $60,000 for a 32-bed hospital.

The result: Albany General Hospital, now marking its centennial year.

“Albany General Hospital holds a special place in the city, and will continue to into its next 100 years, because it has earned the trust of its residents,” said David Triebes, former hospital CEO and corporate vice president for Samaritan Health Services.

“People believe in it, they trust it and they go there,” he said. “It’s a great place still.”

Albany residents did have a couple of hospital choices before Albany General Hospital was born.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church had a hospital on Ellsworth Street, coordinated and staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, from 1908 to 1926. Beauchamp had his maternity ward. In addition, from 1914 to 1915, a home on Washington Street provided maternity services by a woman named Elmer Richardson.

None of the buildings were created to be patient care centers, however. The Sisters of Mercy worked in a grand Victorian that previously had been the church rectory. It had just one private room and another that could house up to 17 people, and nurses had to carry patients up a winding staircase after surgery.

In March 1924, the Albany Evening Herald announced a movement for “a new, modern, fireproof hospital, which will be up to date in every respect,” and noted the building would be financed by bond issue and turned over to the public on retirement of the bonds. That hospital welcomed its first patient, Pearl Hackett, on Nov. 23, 1924, for a 12-day stay at a total cost of $36.

Community involvement has always been a hallmark of Albany General Hospital. Residents recognized that medical needs were growing right along with the population and responded accordingly.

Men who had trained at Camp Adair north of Corvallis found the mid-valley a welcoming place to live. The numbers of servicemen returning from World War II combined with the explosive growth of the baby boomers moved Albany’s population, which had held at around 5,000, to 10,115 by 1950. Twenty years later, the figure nearly doubled again.

The hospital had undergone a 1928 addition and various remodeling efforts in the early 1950s. However, total admissions had skyrocketed, from about 200 in 1936 to 909 two decades later. The founding fathers were gone by then, but Marjorie Sexton, who became superintendent in 1946, and her board of directors knew the 1924 building wasn’t up to the challenges of growth.

Board members had $100,000 in a building fund, another $11,000 from a Ford Foundation grant, and federal matching funds of $86,000 from the Hill-Burton Act. But they calculated it would take another $225,000 to build a new wing and modernize the old.

Board member Orval Thompson, an Albany attorney, led the campaign. In 1985, he told Kim Sass, then the director of public relations, for the hospital’s “Lifeline” magazine, that he knew firsthand how important the effort was.

Infant daughter Marion needed hospitalization in the 1950s, Thompson said, but there was no room to admit her. “Do you know what that Marge Sexton did?” Thompson told Sass. “She set up a cot in her office and watched Marion personally! It made quite a story when I asked people for their donations.”

In October 1958, the hospital held a grand opening for the new 69-bed addition. For the first time, Albany General Hospital had a recovery room. Surgical suites tripled from one to three. Among other amenities, the addition had an expanded pediatrics section, an upgraded emergency space, a larger laboratory and a new physical therapy department.

“I think the hospital was an early adopter of fresh ideas,” said Sass, now retired after a 32-year administrative career with the hospital and its foundation and serving as hospital historian.

Even that expansion wasn’t going to be enough for the rapidly growing community, and the board knew it. In 1967, crews completed the first phase of a new building to face Sixth Avenue, finishing the second phase six years later. A successful $1 million capital campaign in 1990 resulted in a critical care and coronary wing. The 1957 building was remodeled for use by the Linn County Health Department and the 1924 building was demolished to make room for a parking lot.

As technology grew and changed, hospital officials found that in some ways, they needed to expand outside the walls of the hospital to provide the best patient care.

In 1992, 31 physicians and specialists, together with nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants, joined to form FirstCare Physicians. Everyone working together meant a stronger ability to recruit for clinics and share services and volunteers. That led to the creation of the Geary Street Clinic and the first Women’s Imaging Center, along with expansion of surgical services at the hospital. By 2007, Albany also had the Cancer Resource Center, and by 2012, it had the Evergreen Hospice House.

Sharing resources has strengthened the hospital in other ways. In 1999, Albany agreed to join Corvallis, Lebanon, Lincoln City and Newport in forming Samaritan Health Services, a regional partnership meant to help each hospital stay on top of regulatory costs and remain independent of larger organizations.

“This spirit of cooperation, combined with an openness to fulfill community needs, has been what has carried what is now Samaritan Albany General Hospital through a century of service,” Sass said.

“The work has been done by the community, for the community and with the community,” she added. “We have a need. Let’s fill it.”

Watch for more articles about Samaritan Albany General Hospital as we celebrate 100 years of service to the mid-Willamette Valley.