ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL
In the late 1800s and early 1900s Rogers doctors made “house calls” and supplied their own medications to patients. A “sanitarium,” or private hospital, at 506 East Spruce Street (now the Office of Human Concern) was run by Dr. George Love (1909-1934), the Vroom family (1934-1943), and the Dorothy Pettit (1943-1947).
Following WWII, however, the Rogers chamber of
commerce led the planning for Rogers’ first
public hospital. The
Rice family donated
funds to purchase the sixteen acres of land on
which Rogers Memorial Hospital was built at
the corner of 13th and Walnut Streets. In 1951
it came under the direction of the Sisters of
Saint Dominic and in 1979 became known as St.
Mary’s Hospital. The hospital continued to
expand its facilities and services and in 1995
it was transferred to the Sisters of Mercy
Health System out of St. Louis. Mercy Hospital
will soon be moving to a new health-care
campus at I-540 and New Hope Road, on 75 acres
of land donated by the late Evelyn Rife and
family in 1998.
Rogers Memorial Hospital
(now St. Mary’s), 1951. Courtesy of St. Mary’s
Hospital. Neg. #N018035