100 Years of Service
Watch this tribute video celebrating St. Mary Medical Center's 100th Anniversary.
For the past century, Dignity Health - St. Mary Medical Center has been a trusted hospital committed to meeting the health care needs of the Greater Long Beach communities. Our dedicated caregivers continue to provide local expert primary, preventive, emergency and specialty care services.
Learn how St. Mary Medical Center has been serving the Long Beach community for the last 100 years.
History
For the past century, Dignity Health - St. Mary Medical Center has been a trusted hospital committed to meeting the health care needs of the Greater Long Beach communities. Our dedicated caregivers continue to provide local expert primary, preventive, emergency and specialty care services.
St. Mary’s rich history reflects the strength and inspiration of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word who established the first Catholic hospital South of Los Angeles in 1923. At a cost of approximately $160,000, the hospital had 70 beds with an emergency room, laboratory, pharmacy and operating room.
The Sisters’ dedication shone in 1933, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 shook Long Beach, destroying the hospital, convent, and chapel. Knowing of its vital importance to the community, the Sisters rebuilt the hospital with help from William Reid, the chairman of Hancock Oil.
The new hospital opened in 1937 and expanded to include many of the services that exist today. In 1949, the addition of the North Wing, more than doubled hospital capacity. Then in 1974, the Bauer Tower opened with all private patient rooms, a larger emergency department, new intensive care unit and heart care unit, and maternal child health services.
In 1986, the Sisters opened the CARE Center, the nation’s first managed care network for persons living with HIV and AIDS. The hospital continues to grow with a full continuum of care that meets the preventive, curative, supportive and rehabilitative needs of the city’s diverse population.
Today, St. Mary remains a world class medical center at the forefront of health care advancements, from pioneering medical breakthroughs to implementing leading-edge technologies. It is now a 360-bed nonprofit hospital offering a full-continuum of acute hospital care services, including a Level II Trauma Program, Surgical Weight Loss Program and Robotic Surgery.