2. Henry McGregor
founded the McGregor
house on the corner
ofwhat is now 7th and
Main street in downtown
Moscow. It is the current
location of Gritman
Medical Center.
McGregor’s intention
was to have the the finest
hotel in Moscow. Along
with the house, he
owned the land from the
7th and main going south
towards Lewiston and
east towards
Troy, Idaho.
3. Because of a poor
economy due to crop
failures in the
1870s, McGregor was
forcedto sell the hotel
and his land.
The building on 7th
and Main, sat empty
until 1892 when Dr.
Charles L. McGregor put his land on the
market in the January, 1892
Gritman, purchased it to edition of the Moscow
start a hospital. Mirror.
4. Dr. Gritman was born in
Lincoln, Ill., on
December, 28, 1862. When Gritman and his
he was 19, his family wife Bertie, lived in
relocated to the hospital on the
Dayton, Wash., where he third floor for 38
worked and saved money to years.
attend the Cincinnati College
of Medicine and Surgery.
Gritman practiced
medicine in the
Moscow, Palouse region for
41 years. He traveled to
remote villages and farms on
horse and buggy, and sleds
in the snow. He practiced
Dr Charles Gritman
medicine at the hospital with
Continued
several different partners.
5. Bertie was a
registered nurse and
trained nurses in the
Gritman Hospital
Nursing School. She
developed and managed
the hospital with her
husband.
Gritman died on
August 8, 1933. Bertie
sold the property and
old hospital to the
Moscow Hospital
Association for
The outside of Gritman $20,000, with the
Memorial Hospital condition that the
hospital would always
carry the name Gritman.
6. The Moscow
Association had iniitally
planned a hospital with
45 beds costing $100,000.
By September 1939, the
number of beds grew to
48 with a cost of $120,000.
The hospital expanded
again in January
1940, adding 25 more
hospital beds costing
$80,000. The 1940 Gritman Hospital
7. In 1962, due to population
growth and improving
technology, the hospital's
board of directors decided to
build a Center Wing. The
cost was around $685,000
with $330,000 coming from
Hill-Burton funds.
The hospital added
another addition, the 29,500-
square- foot East Wing, in
1974, after receiving financial
help from the Idaho Board of
Health and the Federal
Health Association.
View of the North side of
Gritman
8. Gritman performed the first
appendectomy in the area at his hospital.
This marked a new era with medicine as
Gritman mixed many of his own
medications. Blood transfusions went
through a saline tube from the donor to the
recipient.
In 1991, Gritman
Memorial Hospital
changed to Gritman
Medical Center. The
medical center
provides more than
25 different
departmental
services. And the
transition continues
with helicopter
services instead of
horse and buggy.
Nurses station 1960s
9. Gritman Medical Center has been a significant part of
the Moscow community, celebrating its 100 year
anniversary in 1996.
In 2004, a $20 million expansion project started to add a
roof-top helipad, better emergency quarters, the Patricia
Kempthorne Woman’s Imaging Center, the Family
Birthing Center, an advanced surgery department, and
the Critical Care Unit.
