The Los Angeles Turf Club announces plans for a hospital in Lake Arrowhead. Most of the area known as Arrowhead Woods, including Lake Arrowhead, was owned by the Los Angeles Turf Club, owners of Santa Anita Race Track. The Los Angeles Turf Club donated 4.5 acres of land, including a newly completed hospital, to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, an order of Catholic nuns dedicated to caring for the sick, orphans, and women and children in need.
1951
Santa Anita Hospital opens its doors. It was staffed by 6 Sisters and 15 doctors, nurses and technicians, and administered by the order’s Sister Mary Alma. The 30-bed community hospital is heralded as one of the most modern medical facilities in the United States, with 2 operating rooms, an emergency clinic, a delivery suite and 8-bed nursery, on-site laboratory, x-ray equipment and ambulance service.
1956
Sister Alma forms a volunteer auxiliary to help the Sisters with their duties. There were 12 charter members of the Santa Anita Hospital Auxiliary, many of them wives of doctors and other hospital employees. In addition to helping the Sisters with patients and other hospital duties, the Auxiliary began fundraising for the hospital.
1964
Unable to make ends meet, the Sisters sell the hospital to a non-profit corporation founded by local business leaders.
1967
In a landslide election, Santa Anita Hospital becomes a tax based District Hospital. 84% of voters approved the creation of the San Bernardino Mountains Community Hospital District.
1968
The name of the hospital legally changes to Mountains Community Hospital.
1984
The hospital enters into a 30-year lease with Westworld Community Healthcare, Inc. and a few years later that company files for bankruptcy.
1987
Westworld Community Healthcare, Inc. files for bankruptcy and the County steps in to run the hospital.
1988
Loma Linda University Medical Center agrees to a long-term management contract but terminates the contract after a year and control of the hospital reverts to the District’s Board.
1991
MCH achieves Joint Commission accreditation. MCH Foundation is founded to secure additional sources of funding for the hospital and the Foundation holds the very first Le Grand Picnic.
1996
Rural Health Clinic in Lake Arrowhead opens.
1997
Project 2000 – The First Renovation. Groundbreaking of the Emergency Room
2008
Rural Dental Clinic in Lake Arrowhead opens.
2013
Running Springs Rural Health Clinic moves to a new location on Palo Alto Way.
2018
$6MM seismic strengthening project completes, and for the first time ever, MCH employs its first physician – Dr. Van Martin, General Surgeon.
