Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Revenue and Competitors

The 138-bed Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital opened on April 20, 1953 with 100 employees and 45 physicians. The modern facility offered medical and surgical patient floors, pathology and radiology labs, operating rooms, a fracture room, a physical therapy unit, and a pediatric unit with a nursery and a "pacing room" for fathers-to-be. The planning and fundraising efforts, however, started much earlier-around 1941, when the Salinas Community Hospital Association was formed. Bruce Church, a successful local businessman, called on other influential citizens including Franklin Cornell, James J. King, T.R. Merrill and Oscar Daley to lead more than 175 civic leaders in a major fundraising effort. Church donated the land for the hospital's Romie Lane site and nearly $300,000 was raised. The campaign was put on hold with the onset of WW II, but it resumed fervently in 1947. That same year, the California State Legislature passed an act allowing communities to establish taxation districts to build hospitals and area voters approved the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital District. Church was elected president of the District's Board of Directors.