Barrett Hospital

Barrett Hospital was the first hospital in Dillon that was designed and erected for that purpose. Built on the edge of town, the city streets were extended to accommodate the site. Local benefactors donated to its construction, furnishing, general operation, and to improvements during its nearly half-century of operation. The building is significant as a reminder of the commitment of the citizens of Dillon to providing for the medical needs of all in the community and for its association with two of Beaverhead County's earliest pioneers, Joseph Shineberger and Martin Barrett. These men were the major organizers and contributors to the hospital construction fund.

The son of a farmer, Martin Barrett was born in County Mayo, Ireland in 1840. His widowed mother, with nine children, immigrated to America in 1847, to a village in Ontario, Canada. Martin served an apprenticeship as a tanner and currier, but in 1859 he moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from there drove a freight wagon in a wagon train to Salt Lake City and back. In 1861-62 he engaged in mining in Colorado. In 1863, he formed a partnership with Joseph Shineberger and drove a mule team to Montana. While Shineberger continued his mining efforts in Alder Gulch, Barrett began raising stock on a ranch at Horse Prairie in Beaverhead County. This was his home for over forty years until he moved into Dillon in 1912. He served in the territorial legislature beginning in 1879 and was a stockholder in the State Bank of Dillon.

Joseph Shineberger was born in Philadelphia in 1836 to a soap and candlemaker. After brief employment in a shovel factory, Shineberger in 1859 headed west for the gold country in Colorado, California, and New Mexico. In 1862 he met Martin Barrett, and together they set out for the Salmon River mines in Idaho. While on their way there, word reached them of a gold discovery at Grasshopper Creek in Montana. They changed their destination and arrived in Bannack in July 1863. While Barrett claimed land in Horse Prairie, Shineberger staked out a mining claim there and in Alder Gulch. He ran a freight wagon between the mining operations in southwestern Montana and Salt Lake City, and in 1868 took up cattle and sheep ranching near Red Rock. He was a stockholder in the State Bank of Dillon until his death in 1908.

The partnership of these two pioneers, Barrett and Shineberger, continued after the latter's death, and their common efforts were instrumental in the establishment of Barrett Hospital. In his will, Joseph Shineberger gave the sum of $25,000 for the building of a hospital in Dillon. He specified that the money was to be held in trust at the State Bank until other contributions should bring the sum to $90,000, an amount he considered sufficient to build a hospital ($40,000) and to endow it ($50,000), so that it might be "maintained without being a burden to either Dillon or to the county". The newspaper reported that a close friend of Shineberger's, presumably Martin Barrett, was also prepared to make a $25,000 gift to the hospital fund. However, fifteen years passed before Shineberger's dream was realized.