Marin’s County Hospitals
By Robert L. Harrison
Marin General Hospital, opened in 1952 and recently renamed MarinHealth Medical Center, is regarded as “the county hospital.” While it is indeed publicly owned, it is not operated by the County of Marin and has never been identified as the “county hospital” per se. Historically, that distinction goes to a facility established in 1880 in Lucas Valley: the Marin County Hospital and Poor Farm. Prior to that year Marin residents relied on limited local private medical services or headed to San Francisco for an advanced level of care.
San Francisco’s first hospital was the U. S. Marine Hospital completed in 1853. The building was soon converted into a publicly-supported county hospital for all in San Francisco. The first official San Francisco City and County Hospital opened in 1872 at its current location on Potrero Avenue. In 1857, St. Mary’s Hospital, then located on Stockton Street, became the city’s first Roman Catholic Hospital. Later in 1874, St. Luke’s Hospital opened as the only Protestant hospital on the west coast.
From 1850 to 1880 Marin County had no county hospital. During this period the only publicly-supported hospital in Marin was at San Quentin State Prison. The facility served the inmates but was not typically available to the general public. To the north, Sonoma County opened a county hospital in 1866. For most of these early years the Marin County budget included a hospital fund to be used by indigents in need of medical services. The authenticity of each individual’s hardship and the cash to be awarded was decided by a vote of the Board of Supervisors.
Marin Supervisors in 1880 voted to establish a county farm to house and care for the ill as well as the indigent elderly. The new facility was built in Lucas Valley, the site of the current Marin County Juvenile Hall and a County Parks Field Office. “Pest Houses” were maintained for patients with contagious diseases. A well-known doctor, A. W. Taliaferro, was appointed Visiting Physician and granted a “reasonable” compensation. In 1882 he received $412 (about $10,300 in 2021 dollars) for his services. Initially only the Supervisors or the county physician could recommend individuals for admission to the facility. Later any doctor could propose admittance. In its early years the typical number of patients, both sick and the elderly, totaled 25 to 30 men and women.
Grand Jury reports of 1881, 1893, 1899 and 1908 found the facilities clean and well maintained. The Poor Farm was productive and the dairy continued operations until the state sanitary codes requiring pasteurization forced it out of business. Later the administration of the facility came under scrutiny and criticism. Vera Schultz, Marin’s first woman Supervisor, notes in her Oral History series for the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley, “It became the custom of the Board [of Supervisors] to meet out there regularly in order to keep tabs on conditions at the County Farm.”
While adequate management at the Lucas Valley facility was being debated, the need for a more centrally located emergency hospital was under discussion. As early as July 18, 1901 the Marin Journal included this plea from a reader: “…the urgent need for an emergency hospital in a conveniently central part of San Rafael…. such a cottage hospital would serve for the case of poor patients suffering from diseases who require for a time more frequent visits than they can receive at a county hospital situated so many miles from a town where the medical officer resides.”
In 1905 three doctors founded the non-profit San Rafael Cottage Hospital at Fifth Avenue and Petaluma Avenue (later renamed Lincoln Avenue). According to the Marin County Tocsin of May 18, 1907:
It can now justly be considered as being among the best and most modern institutions of its kind… Two operating rooms … are models of all that operating rooms should be, …The hospital is the headquarters for the Emergency Corps and the best trained nurses and attendants are always in charge.
First known as the Cottage Hospital it was renamed the San Rafael General Hospital in 1947 and finally closed in 1966.
In January 1919 the Board of Supervisors approved a limited service emergency hospital in downtown San Rafael. The Red Cross headquarters on Fourth Street was vacated and emergency medical equipment installed. County patients were treated for $3.50 (about $70 in 2021 dollars) per day. The “County Emergency Hospital” opened in 1920 and treated six patients on the Fourth of July that year. According to the Marin Journal of July 8, 1920: “The fact that the hospital was ready for use is accounted fortunate by the physician in charge, as at this time, owning to the closing of the Cottage Hospital….it would have been difficult to find facilities over the holidays for the treatment of emergency patients.”
Discussion continued for several years on the need for a centrally located county hospital. The Sausalito News on February 2, 1924 reported a resolution of the Medical Society: “San Rafael and County of Marin has hospital facilities inadequate and unsatisfactory for present and any future use…Be it therefore resolved, that the Marin County Medical Society sponsors such a proposed adequate hospital.” According to the June 1, 1939 News, in response to the Taxpayers Association analysis reporting that private hospitals had lower cost compared to county hospitals, “The Supervisors…were convinced that the time has not arrived for the county to invest in buildings to house a county hospital.”
In the late 1940s the case for a modern county hospital gained public support. The results of an election held on September 30, 1947 showed 64% of voters favored a bond to fund a $1,750,000 (about $2 million in 2021 dollars), 175 bed county hospital. But the measure failed because a two-thirds yes vote was required for passage. In 1949 Marin County was awarded a $1.346 million federal grant contingent on county raising an additional $800,000. An election for a bond to raise these funds was successful and was used in part to purchase the site for the future Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae. Marin General was opened in 1952 as a not-for-profit, publicly owned and governed facility.
However, the new Marin General did not replace the County Hospital and Farm in Lucas Valley. By the mid-1950s the state found the two-story main building at the Farm in need of reinforcement to remain earthquake safe. The Mill Valley Record of October 19, 1960 headlined: “Hospital and Farm Serves Well.” The article continued, “A tour of the premises reveals that the buildings are in good repair….the facilities are old fashioned…but the inhabitants appear happy and well cared for.”
Because of its high costs per bed and despite the positive findings of its reporter, the Record editorialized against the bond measure intended to fund a new County Hospital and Farm. In June and November 1960 the voters twice rejected the $2.2 million bond measures. In February 1961 the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, J. Walter Blair, declared the idea of a new million dollar County Hospital “absurd.” One more effort to pass a bond for the renewal of the facility failed to gain majority support in an election held on June 27, 1961. It was the end for the Marin County Hospital and Farm in Lucas Valley. The patients were transferred and the unused buildings were torn down in 1994.
Today Marin County does not have a facility officially identified as the “County Hospital.” But in its place the greatly expanded and updated Marin General, now known as MarinHealth Medical Center, operates under public sponsorship.
Editor’s note:
For more on the County Poor Farm’s history, view the documentary “A Silent Legacy” available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EkQZZNZJkBE
