PeaceHealth Revenue and Competitors

PeaceHealth in Bellingham, Washington: From frontier outpost to leading regional medical center In August 1890 two members of the fledgling order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace traveled west from their home in Atlantic, New Jersey. Their mission: to establish a hospital in the fishing and lumber town of Fairhaven, Washington, later part of Bellingham. Once there, Sisters Teresa Moran and Stanislaus Tighe began raising construction funds by selling annual hospital "tickets" for $10 each. In January 1891 the sisters opened 30-bed St. Joseph Hospital, the first hospital in Whatcom County. It was staffed by seven nuns and a lay cook. Hospital food included fresh vegetables from the sisters' own garden. In 1901 St. Joseph Hospital moved to a larger 53-bed facility on Forest Street, built with $21,000. To help finance the new facility, the sisters once again sold hospital tickets, venturing as far away as Alaska to collect funds from gold miners in the Klondike. The Forest Street hospital was expanded four times in 65 years before it was replaced in 1966 by a new 81-bed facility on Ellis Street. After several major expansion projects and the purchase in 1989 of St. Luke's General Hospital, St. Joseph has become a two-campus hospital: Main Campus and, at the former St. Luke's site, South Campus.