As the track reached Ramsey Lake, a village of tents and log shanties sprang up almost overnight. Important above all others was a log dwelling some 40 feet by 30, which served as a hospital (c1883). It could accommodate 15 patients at the corner of Lorne and Elm streets and was named ‘Pill Hill’.
Dr. William Howey was put in charge (having arrived just as it was being completed), with his young wife Florence assisting him as nurse. Read more at Pioneering on the C.P.R.
In 1887 a new building became a private hospital. (L)
In 1892, a newcomer to the area Dr. Jacob Hart, bought a piece of land situated on Dufferin Street, close to Elm. The small hospital he built was named the “Sudbury Hospital.” Within two years, Dr. Hart sold this property to another physician, Dr. John Goodfellow. Originally called the Hart Hospital and then the Algoma-Nipissing Hospital it was renamed Sudbury General Hospital in 1895.
In 1913, the Sudbury General Hospital on Elm Street was closed.
The Sudbury General Hospital was leased to the Grey Nuns of Ottawa in 1896, who operated it as St. Joseph’s Hospital until their new 85 bed hospital was complete in 1898.
The Sudbury Star October 7, 1914 (L)
From ‘The First 75 Years’ In February of 1902 16 cases of smallpox were reported. George Hicks operated a “steamship on the street” in front of the King Edward Hotel, and all baggage of travelers had to be put through a steaming process to kill smallpox germs. He became known as ‘Stewpot George’. Women complained because the process caused colours to run.
The St. Joseph’s Hospital was was expanded in 1926, with the addition of 250 beds.
On Jan. 11, 1911, the St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing officially opened in the wake of the Spanish Influenza epidemic, and by November of 1913, the first nursing school graduation of three nurses took place. Renamed the St. Elizabeth School of Nursing, the school operated until 1969, training and graduating more than 870 nurses.
Remembering the Old St. Joseph Hospital
