Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center is the region’s pride today, but it had many predecessors since the county was established in 1879.
Probably the first was the Denver & Rio Grande Hospital on Buena Vista’s Main Street, built between 1880 and 1882. It was a plain storefront with a sign that said R.R. Hospital. The reason for a railroad hospital was because Salida was a railroad center and railroad employees needed care. However, the early hospitals also provided care to travelers and local residents.
Next came the county hospital in August of 1882. There is some question about its location but one reference states it was located at the southeast edge of Salida near the Arkansas River where U.S. Highway 50 now intersects with County Road 107.
There is some confusion about the county hospital and the poor farm. The county hospital was erected in 1882, and the poor farm on CR 160 was built in 1892. At times newspaper articles referred to the poor farm as the county hospital. People who were sent there weren’t always sick. They had no family and no money, and if they were able to work, they helped with chores at the poor farm.
The first Denver & Rio Grande Hospital in Salida was built at 448 East First St. in 1885. It burned in 1899 but was rebuilt. By the mid 1950s the D&RG Hospital was declining. Railroad employees in Salt Lake City, Utah, resented having to come to Salida for care, and the building was in need of repairs. It became Salida Hospital in 1962 when a group of citizens purchased it from the railroad. In 1989 the name was changed to Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center (HRRMC) to better define the area and services offered. In 2008 the new HRRMC was built 1.2 miles west on Colorado Highway 291.
Columbine Manor, while not a hospital, did care for elderly people. When it was built in 1976, Salida Hospital discontinued its nursing home services.
Dr. Frank N. Cochems opened the Red Cross Hospital, which was also a teaching hospital for nurses, at 123 G St. in Salida in 1902. The ”new” Red Cross Hospital was built at the corner of G and Third streets in 1909 and closed in 1939.
There were also a couple of maternity homes located in downtown Salida between the 1920s and 1950s. These homes existed mainly for “confinement” in the last days of pregnancy for women who lived in the country and wanted to be sure of having care when the time came for delivery.
