St. Elizabeth Hospital (Old)
a.k.a. St. Elizabeth Nursing Home;St. Elizabeth Towers
2365 Fourth St., Baker, ORThe old St. Elizabeth Hospital, located at Fourth and Madison streets in Baker, Oregon, is a locally distinctive example of architecture in the Jacobethan style and one of a group of prominent civic and religious buildings constructed of tuff during Baker's principal era of upbuilding. Baker was a diocesan headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church beginning in 1903. St. Francis Cathedral and rectory are among the local landmarks constructed of the indigenous volcanic rock, as are the City Hall, the Baker County Courthouse, the Carnegie Library, and Elks Temple.
The hospital meets National Register criterion for its association with the ministries of Roman Catholic Church orders locally. Among the most prominent of these was the hospital maintained by the Sisters of St. Francis from 1897 onward. When the Sisters' new St. Elizabeth Hospital opened in 1915, it was the largest and best-equipped medical facility in the district. It held that distinction to the present day, keeping pace with community growth by expansion, the first in 1921, and again in 1940 when a separate building of concrete construction was added to the northwest corner of the block to house the nursing school and convent. In 1970 the Sisters of the Order of St. Francis built a modern, single-level community hospital elsewhere in the city, and old St. Elizabeth's was converted to use as a nursing home operated under the Sisters' auspices. In 1987 the diocesan seat was removed from Baker, and the hospital/nursing home was vacated. The current owner is rehabilitating the building for condominiums.
The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia entered the missionary field in the West in 1885 upon opening an academy at Baker City, Oregon. Their school filled the gap left by the closure in the preceding year of the academy which had been established by the Sisters of the Holy Names in 1875.
In 1897 the Sisters of St. Francis opened a two-and-one-half-story hospital building in the Stick Style at Second and Church streets in Baker. It was superseded by the subject building in 1915 and is no longer extant.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.