Spearfish Lake Hospital

Sanford Memorial Hospital was an old Victorian “cottage” with a lot of rooms and not particularly suited for use as a hospital, which had been donated to the town in the early 1920s.^FK1 In August 1955 Dr. Brege told Dr. Luce “We really could stand a new hospital, but we’ve been able to make do so far.”^FK5

Spearfish Lake Hospital was a fairly new single-story cut stone building when it closed being uneconomical due to its small size, sometime after Dr. Gene Metarie set up his practice in Spearfish Lake. The building was still owned by the county at the time Dr. Tricia York moved to Spearfish Lake in August 2009. It was mostly empty, with a physical therapist and a senior citizens centre renting parts. There was a long term idea to use the building as a medical clinic housing both doctors' practices and offering other services.^HP8

The final act in the story Hiding Patty is the opening of the new SpearfishLake Medical Clinic.^HP33