Looking Back and Moving Forward
Cheyenne Regional Medical Center celebrates 150 years of caring for our community and region in 2017.
That focus on caring began in 1867, when Union Pacific Railroad officials pitched a tent hospital in Cheyenne to treat workers who were injured while building the transcontinental railroad. One year later, the City of Cheyenne purchased the frontier hospital for $125.
Over the next few years the hospital was moved to several different locations and buildings. It finally found a permanent home in 1883, when a new facility was built for $21,000 on land donated to the city by Union Pacific Railroad at what would eventually become the corner of 23rd Street and Evans Avenue. The first patients were admitted on December 7.
In 1900 a typhoid epidemic hit Cheyenne. In the face of this crisis, a Hospital Aid Society was formed to raise funds to renovate the health facility, which was renamed St. John’s Hospital. Through the early 1900s, county and Union Pacific Railroad officials funded additions to the hospital to care for pregnant women and Union Pacific employees and their dependents.
In 1920 St. John’s Hospital was demolished and construction of the new Memorial Hospital began.
Over the next few decades, Memorial Hospital would undergo substantial renovation and modernization to meet the needs of a growing community and region.
In 1952 the community would also see the addition of DePaul Hospital, which was run by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth.
In 1992 Memorial Hospital of Laramie County would purchase DePaul, forming United Medical Center.
The hospital would once again change in 2006, to become Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.
Along with our community, we’ve grown and changed through the years.
The one thing that has not changed is that original pioneering spirit, which continually pushes us to seek out how we can best care for and meet the health needs of our community and region.
