“The first hospital was a four-room cottage,”…
source date: 1889
availability: public-domain

ulted in the creation of the Grant County Charity Hospital Society. This organiza- tion secured an appropriation from the Legislature of $250 a month to operate an institution which the mining activities with its accidents and the frontier violence of untamed men made necessary. “The first hospital was a four-room cottage,” Mrs. Warren told the Silver City Enterprise in 1932. It was acquired in the year 1 882. and occu- pied the site in the northeastern section of Silver City, where the Black Range Lumber Company planing mill stood before it was destroyed by fire two years ago. The Laizure planing mill was first erected on the spot. ‘Of course, we had to decide upon an operating room, and we reserved a room for that purpose. Next arose the question of light. We had nothing but oil lamps. J here were no electric lights in those days. There were never any operations per- formed at night. There could be no emergency or other operations except during daylight hours. We had a hole cut in the roof of the operating room. The patient was placed on a deal table, similar to those used in kitchens except that it was much longer than the average.” The first sufferer to be laid on that table was a cattleman s wife. She had a ruptured bladder, the result of childbirth.