St. Elizabeth Healthcare history

In 1862, women began bringing abandoned children and infants to the hospital, prompting the first major expansion of St Elizabeth.

The building was in use until 1868, when the larger 11th Street hospital building was purchased.

Because the gold rush boom had dwindled, they moved on to Red Bluff, where they opened the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy on March 3, 1882

By 1900, the community had outgrown the aging 11th Street building.

On October 30, 1906, while operating the boarding school, the sisters and Bishop Thomas Grace were gifted a generous donation of money and land from Elizabeth Kraft, widow of Herbert Kraft, one of the largest landowners in the area.

A fire destroyed the hospital on September 9, 1913, but the sisters worked tirelessly to raise the money needed to rebuild.

In fact, by 1914 St Elizabeth opened its new facility on 21st Street in Covington that many knew as the St Elizabeth North Unit.

A nursing School was added in 1915 and five years later, Northern Kentucky’s first Maternity Department was opened.

Then, in 1948, the citizens of Campbell County began to realize that they, too, had a dire need for a hospital in their growing area.

Many years later, in 1978, a larger hospital was built two miles south of the original downtown site to meet the needs of the growing Red Bluff population.

In 1980, a Pendleton County hospital was purchased, which is now known as St Elizabeth Falmouth, Northern Kentucky’s only inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center.

Shasta Medical Center to create Mercy Healthcare North in 1995.

Something remarkable happened in Northern Kentucky in 2010.

Hinckley was at St Elizabeths until 2016, when he was released.

Cancer Center officially opened on September 29, 2020.