Long-time Prineville hospital’s closing ceremony set
After 65 years of serving Crook County, Pioneer Memorial Hospital will close on Sept. 21, the same day the new hospital — St. Charles Prineville — opens.
The community is invited to a special ceremony on Monday, Aug. 17, from 4 to 5 p.m., at the Cascade conference room and adjoining outdoor area at PMH to celebrate the history and legacy of the hospital.
“This is a bittersweet time for us,” said Pioneer Memorial Hospital CEO Jeanie Gentry. “We’re so excited to open our new hospital in September, but for the many caregivers who have spent years — even decades — caring for patients here at Pioneer Memorial Hospital, it will be hard to say goodbye.
“This building is so much more than brick and mortar—it’s a source of great pride for this community, which worked hard to open it, and keep it open, without outside funding for many years.”
The hospital — which was built as a “living memorial” in honor of the pioneers who settled Central Oregon, as well as the men and women who served in World Wars I and II — opened in its current location on June 1, 1950.
Its very first patient, Wilbut Ditmar, arrived at 10:25 a.m. He had suffered a broken leg and was transferred from Prineville General Hospital. Later on, the hospital’s first twins—a boy and a girl—were born to Mr. and Mrs. Pat McCabe.
The community prided itself on building the facility without a cent of federal funding. During a year-long campaign, which ended in October of 1948, some 1,730 Crook County residents collectively donated $382,625.
Full-page advertisements asking for donations, which ran frequently that year in the local newspaper, implored residents to “Give and save human lives—perhaps some day your own!”
Jackie McRae, a Prineville resident, later told The Central Oregonian: “Driving up the hill and surveying Pioneer Memorial Hospital was a sure cure for the doldrums. It gave inspiration, knowing we lived in a community that was capable of creating such an enduring institution.”
Prior to the opening of PMH, hospital services had been provided in two different homes in the area. The first was Home Hospital located in Elkins House in 1934, and the second was known as The Cornett House (later known as Prineville General Hospital), which opened in 1938.
Through a lease agreement in 2008, PMH joined the St. Charles family. A community board, which remains in place to manage the hospital’s assets, will manage the maintenance and sale of the building once it’s decommissioned as a hospital.
